I, Assassin
by Zettel
Summary: What if Quinn's obstruction of Sarah's memories had been more complete than he intended? What if he had suppressed not just her five years in Burbank, but her identity? Can Sarah uncover herself again, discover her husband again, recover her life again? Even against new foes? Canon until the decoupling of the Bullet Train. —A different take on the ending of the show.
1. Prologue: A Lost Time Ago

**A/N1** [Embarrassed stammer] I, uh, I thought I was done. For a while, at least... [Kicks awkwardly, abashedly at the dirt...]

And then this story idea hit me just as I finished _Turned Tables_. I couldn't not write it.

This story is not a _saga_ of the sort that _Cables_ and _Tables_ were. It is more focused, more compact. It is told in a tense, urgent way, an exercise in compressibility. The chapters will be short: between 2500-4000 words typically.

The story is a different take on the end of _Chuck,_ one that employs motifs from Robert Ludlum's _The Bourne Identity_ (the novel).

Don't own _Chuck_ or _The Bourne Identity_.

* * *

Great is this force of memory, excessive great...a large and boundless chamber! whoever sounded the bottom thereof? yet is this a power of mine, and belongs unto my nature; nor do I myself comprehend all that I am. Therefore is the mind too strait to contain itself. And where should that be, which it containeth not of itself? Is it without it, and not within? how then doth it not comprehend itself? Augustine, _Confessions_ , Book Ten

* * *

PROLOGUE

A Lost Time Ago

* * *

The white van is grey in the black. It plunges into the even deeper darkness of the all-but-forgotten dock and skids to a stop. For a moment, nothing happens. The universe stalls, but the engine continues to run. Then the side door slides open. Two figures in black, darkness made humanoid, push a body out. It lands with a dull thud.

A searchlight from a passing boat, far out on the water, weakly illuminates the van and the body for a moment: a flash of blonde hair. Then the light is gone, and evidently, no eye had followed the beam to see the flash.

"Shut the damn door!" A harsh voice from the driver's seat. One of the figures yanks the door and slides it shut. The engine guns; the van is gone.

The searchlight from the boat sweeps past again, even weaker this time, and the hand beside the blonde hair glints. Or, the rings on it do, a wedding set, an engagement ring, and a matching wedding band. Then the light is gone and it does not return.

ooOoo

Hours later. The body moves-no mere body, no corpse. A person. Still. A woman. She is prone on the dirty pavement. She pushes herself shakily up with her arms, twists with a moan, and lifts her hips, so that she is seated. The movement draws her deep into icy nausea. She leans over and vomits-nothing but bile. Almost-dry heaves. She swipes at the thin string of saliva that runs from her bottom lip to the pavement, breaking it.

She looks around her, something in her compelling her to assess her surroundings. Her eyes dart around the docks. She has no idea where she is. All she knows is that she is vulnerable. An easy target. She needs to get out of sight. The dark does not cloak enough.

Standing is not an option. When she tries, the nausea put its fingers down her throat again and she vomits more bile. She struggles onto her hands and knees. There is a dumpster against the wall, ten or twelve feet from her. She crawls glacially to it, terminal moraine, stabbing her right hand on a shard of glass she did not see. Painful, not serious. When she finally reaches the dumpster, she pulls herself up through the opening in its side. The stench is awful. Rot and filth. But her instincts tell her she is better off there than on the pavement. She slides the plastic cover partially shut, further obscuring herself from view. She passes out, passing into a darkness more complete than that in and around the dumpster.

ooOoo

Hours later. Gray dawn. Cold. She wakes. Her body aches. Her head is pounding. But her stomach is not at sea any longer. But the stench has encircled her and settled into her clothes, a black shirt and black pants. Offensive.

She examines herself more closely. She is badly bruised. Her knuckles on both hands are raw. Her nails are torn, bloody. Her wrists are rope-burned.

Her whole body trembles. She knows by feeling that her back is a mess of abrasions; her hips ache. She's been beaten, badly beaten. But she's capable of moving now, maybe even of defending herself, for a moment or two, anyway.

Pushing back the cover on the side of the dumpster, she spies an elderly woman stumbling toward her. In the woman's hand is a brown bag, the neck of a bottle stretched out of it. At her side, long-sufferingly evading the woman's unpredictable steps, is a small dog, brown and dirty, a mutt. The woman stops and looks down at the dog, bending at the waist to scratch behind one of its ears. "Good girl. Good girl. Momma loves her Peaches."

At the last word, the insides of the dumpster vanish. The woman inside it has...a vision. She sees an attractive woman with dark hair-and then a photograph of a dog, perhaps a cocker spaniel. The two-part vision blinds her, a knife blades between her eyes. She groans and loses consciousness. _Free in the dark...I am never free in the dark..._

The old woman hears the groan and she gives the dumpster a wide berth, wider than the stench alone justifies. "C'mon, Peaches, s'time to go." The small dog jumps up on the side of the dumpster, whining, but eventually, it obeys and rejoins the old woman on their unsure, unsteady journey into the dawn.

ooOoo

Hours later. The woman in the dumpster fights her way back to consciousness. Her head is still throbbing. Nausea squeezes her stomach. Ignoring both, she takes stock of the flat afternoon daylight and climbs from the dumpster. She leans against it, panting from the effort, and from the concentration, it takes not to be sick again. She knows she needs water. Dehydration has set in. She also needs food. She needs real rest. _Water, food, rest is a weapon._ She can't remember being so weak.

But-then again-she can't _remember_. Full stop. She can remember becoming conscious on the pavement, crawling to the dumpster. Examining her injuries. Nothing else. Before that, and after it until now, nothingness. Blank. In an attempt to keep herself from complete panic, she begins an internal monologue.

"It's ok. Temporary amnesia. Temporary. I was beaten. Must've taken a blow to the head. It's ok, …" She means to call herself by her own name, but it is as if she's hit a wall. No name comes to her mind.

No name.

Blank.

 _What the hell?_

 _Who am I?_

She starts walking, keeping herself in the shadows without realizing that she is doing so. Her eyes are busy, searching. She can see everything around her as if displayed in a 3D grid. Angles, lines, vantage points. Exits, entrances. Signs of people.

Even though she is stiff and aching, she forces herself to move quickly, but without any obvious signs of hurrying. She knows she likely looks bruised and dirty. She stinks like the dumpster. She needs to make herself presentable. Then she needs to think about how she can get help, and what kind of help she needs. Her hand automatically moves to her pocket. No phone. She glances at her empty hand and sees the rings.

A wedding set.

She stops. A wedding set? But she isn't married! Is she? The rings do not seem alien to her, foreign. Not exactly. But finding them is a surprise. A twinge of something passes through her. Joy? But it is wrong for them to be on her hand; she couldn't possibly...deserve them. But it is lucky too. Maybe that explains the twinge: they are expensive. She can pawn them for cash. Maybe that explains the twinge. She can pawn them, maybe for enough to keep herself alive until she knows who she is keeping alive.

ooOoo

After walking for a brutal distance, given her condition, the woman finds herself in a more populous, but unwholesome section of town. She still isn't sure where she is, although the language around her is English-signs, graffiti, used fast food bags. McDonald's. Almost certainly a US city. Water. Docks. Coastal. She walked away from the water without looking back. She regrets it now. She struggles to keep her mind focused.

 _Always know where you are, always know the time. Never lose track of these things._ _Doing so_ _will get you killed._

She keeps her head down and walks close to the buildings. People are passing her now, but no one pays any particular attention to her or her to anyone. She sees a thrift shop, its lights on. Without deliberating and without forming a plan, she slips inside. She knows it is another lucky break. She sees a rack of dresses. A bit out of date, certainly not anything like her style- _how does she know that?_ -but long enough and loose enough to keep her from drawing too much attention. Long sleeves. She was suddenly sure she had drawn attention in the past. She'd been gazingstock for lust, sometimes used that fact to her advantage. She chooses a grey dress, a size too large. Moving quickly, she finds a display of used shoes. A pair of black flats in her size. _How can she know her size but not her name?_ She grabs them.

Near the back of the store is a turnstile display of cheap but new, still-packaged underwear. She grabs a package of panties, and a lacy camisole. She moves without hesitation, efficiently. The girl at the counter had looked up for a second when the woman came in, but not long enough to become interested. _Good, just a customer._

Dress, shoes and other items in hand, the woman goes into one of the dressing booths. She stops. Panic starts. A full-length mirror showed her herself. She is tall, blonde, athletic. Statuesque. Beautiful. But her hair is matted and filthy. Dirt and streaks of brown, dried blood, she realized, are on her face. She is pale, her features drawn.

But the frightening part of the confrontation with the mirror was that she is confronted by a woman she has never seen before. She knows it is her, but she doesn't know her. Reflected unfamiliarity.

 _Who am I? Who is this I in me?_

She puts her hand against one wall of the booth and steadies herself until the panic decreases. Forcing herself to calm down, she wedges the dress and shoes and underwear under the bench in the booth and heads for the door, purposely drawing the attention of the girl at the counter. The girl looks up again, but only for a second before she looks down again. _Her phone. Of course. Very good._

As the woman gets to the door, she ducks quickly to the side, behind a mannequin display. Peeking out, she sees that the young woman did not look up again. The woman creeps quietly back through the store to the dressing booth. Once inside, she peels off her shoes and clothes, her underwear. Bruises criss-cross her body but reveal no meaningful pattern. Her back is badly scraped.

Taking a deep breath, she slides her hands down below her waist and carefully touched, probes herself. She blows out the breath when she feels no damage, no soreness, finds no trace of blood, or anything else. She gets the things she has hidden and opens the packages silently. She slips into the panties and camisole. Then puts on the dress and the shoes. She quickly pulls the laces out of the black shoes she's been wearing. She drops one into a dress pocket.

 _Never waste anything you can carry effortlessly and might be able to use. A rubber band or a paperclip could save your life. Almost anything can be a weapon._

 _What are these instructions? How do I know these things?_

Shaking her head-that is a problem for later-she runs her fingers through her hair to loosen it and make it more manageable. She uses the other shoelace to tie it back into a simple ponytail. For a split-second, as she looks at herself in the mirror, she seems familiar. A name is on the tip of her mind, then it is gone. The familiarity vanishes. She is estranged from herself anew.

She double-checks the clothes she has taken off, to see if there is anything in them or about them she had missed. Nothing. Then she pulls off the wedding set. Holding the engagement ring up to the light reveals nothing. But the wedding ring-something is inscribed in it: _Your heart is my heart. -C._ Nothing more.

She drops the rings into the other dress pocket. She silently steals out of the dressing room, not obviously the same woman who had gone inside. She finds a swinging door at the back of the shop with a handwritten sign: 'Employees Only'. Opening it reveals a chaotic storage room-but also a bathroom and the back door. The woman almost runs to the bathroom. Inside, she washes her face and hands and as much of the rest of her as time and her reach allows. She uses the rough brown paper towels to dry herself. She drinks from cupped hands below the faucet-deep and long. When she stands up, she feels better than she can remember feeling. Ever. Weird. Of course, she can only remember a few hours.

She gets to the door. She knows it will beep when she opens it. Nothing to do but to do it. She pushes it open. The beeping starts. She walks down the narrow alleyway quickly and out onto the sidewalk. No shouts. No one following. She'd done it.

How had she known how to do it? It had all seemed familiar, almost routine, as she concentrated on what she was doing and not her knowledge of how to do it. When she tried to concentrate on the latter, her sense that she knew how to do it vanished. She had no idea how she knew what she knew. She wasn't sure she knew it until she did it.

She finds a pawn shop a few blocks away. The man agrees to pay a decent price for the rings, although he glances at her sadly. She realizes it is because her eyes are brimming with tears. Her heart is sinking. She blinks the tears back, ignores her sinking heart, and reaches for the money. It is enough money to keep her going for a while if she is careful. Being careful is something she knows how to do.

 _How? Why?_

She can barely breathe. It is not because of her sore ribs, bruises. The pain is internal, psychological. _emotional_. She stops outside the pawn shop and turns to go back in. To retrieve her rings. Her rings. But in what sense 'hers'? They had been on _her_ finger. She has a sudden...memory. But of a different set of rings, cheaper, less...significant.

 _Mrs. Anderson_.

A name! But as she rolls it around in her mind, it attaches to nothing, attracts no other memory. Not her name but still not _not_ her name. What does that mean? Divorce? All the name does is make her feel more empty.

She does not go back in. She makes a note of the place and carefully puts her claim ticket in her pocket. She needs to find a place to sleep; she needs the money. Exhaustion, pain, both are mounting. She cannot function for much longer. Sleep. And food.

A convenience store on a corner provides her with a bruised banana and a small, green apple. Both seem symbolic of her current state-bruised and yet somehow unripe (except for her odor: the sink bath had not done all that she might have hoped; she still stinks). She gulps down the banana and then the apple.

A few blocks further on, as the neighborhood becomes less sketchy, she finds a motel. It would do, if she can get checked in. She walks up to the double doors and looks inside. A young man, tall and thin, is finishing up with an older man at the front desk. She walks in and finds the restroom. There is a soap dispenser, so she washes again. She pinches her cheeks and bites her lips-trying to cope with the pallor of her skin. As she walks to the desk, she feels herself stand up straighter, her smile brightens. When she gets to the desk, she crosses her arms on it and leans against them, pushing her breasts up, tight against the fabric of her dress.

Effortlessly feigning shyness, she looks up at the young man through her lashes. The older man has gone away while she was in the bathroom.

"Hi! I'm Rebecca." The name came from nowhere. "And I need a room. I'll pay cash. Do you need an ID?" The young man looks at her, his eyes sliding from her eyes to her lips to her breasts. He lifts his eyes back to her eyes, but his eyes seem to have become heavy. He has a hard time keeping them from sinking back down.

"Well, yes, we are supposed to. But it's mainly a way of preventing credit card fraud. If you have cash...I can probably work around the ID thing." He says the last as if they have just become co-conspirators, intimate. The way he looks at her galls her but is predictable-and she needs to do everything she can to make him pliable. She tucks her anger away. That tucking-away feels familiar-for a second, anyway.

As the clerk looks down at the computer screen and begins to check on a room, she notices his brown hair and loose curls. Her body responds to something about him (not him) and when he looks up, pausing for a moment again at her breasts, she realizes that she was staring. She had responded, her breasts had responded to something...to the whisper of the ghost of a memory. Her knees feel weak and something deep and low in her heats up. The clerk grins and gives her a form to fill out.

Again, effortlessly and without deliberation, she fills in the blanks. _Rebecca Franco. Cleveland, Ohio._ She puts down that she is driving a Toyota Camry, white, and writes out the license number with 1's that looked like 7's (and vice-versa) and 2's that looked like Z's (and vice-versa). The man is too preoccupied with sneaking glances at her chest even to look carefully at the card. He gives her a total and she pays him. He hands her the key, asking a question with his eyes, or trying to. She misses it on purpose. With a small, purposely ambiguous wave in his direction, she gets on the elevator and rides up to her room.

She is in San Diego. She saw the address of the motel on the form she filled out. _San Diego_. That makes her feel anxious, badly anxious. But she has no idea why. Then she has another flash of memory. _A box hurriedly dug up and full of money. In the woods. The greenery around her coated in bereavement_. Then the flash is gone, an answer to a question she doesn't know. She rubs her temples-trying to cope with the dull pain the memory causes.

Once inside her room, she sheds the dress and shoes and underwear. Once the shower is on and the bathroom filling with steam, she phones the front desk. There is a burger place nearby that delivers. She gets the number and calls. A burger and a salad and fries- _why not?_ she was starving-and three bottles of water. She is about to hang up when a craving overtakes her. _Pickles_. She wants pickles, extra, lots. Pickles.

She hangs up the phone.

So she likes pickles.

She didn't remember that, but there is no mistaking it, the intense reaction, the watering of her mouth. But had she ever wanted pickles so bad before? And speaking of bodily reactions: what happened at the front desk? When had she ever felt a flash of desire so intense? And for whom? The clerk had caused the flash but he was not its target, not its object. Someone else? No answers to her questions. Maybe after some food and a night's rest...maybe, there'll be some light, something. Not just nothing, blankness.

She stands in the shower, letting the water nearly scald her. She lets her body go limp. She lets her mind go blank. Not hard, she thinks bitterly. And then she begins to cry. For real. The tears she blinked back at the pawn shop finally escape. She has no idea why pawning the rings affects her so much.

And then she remembers-but just from earlier in the day: _Your heart is my heart._ Thinking about that makes her heart ache, creates more tears.

' _C' is for heart, and heart is for…?_

Blank. Nothing. Tears without context.

She eats when the food arrives. Everything, fries included. She drinks two bottles of water. In the bed, under the covers, she shivers for a while. Warming, the tears come again.

' _C' is for heart…_

 _Who is Mr. Anderson?_

 _Who am I?_

 _Who is 'C'?_

Just as her heartache becomes too much, she flips a switch. She doesn't turn the ache off, she turns the light off on it. It goes on aching-but in the dark. She can all but ignore it. She frowns. Has she found that a useful skill to have too?

* * *

 **A/N2** Thanks to WvonB, David Carner and halfachance. Chapter 1, "Jigsaw" will post at the end of next week.


	2. Chapter 1: Jigsaw

**A/N1** The placement of some pieces on the board...

Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Don't own Chuck.

* * *

ACT I

CHAPTER ONE

Jigsaw

* * *

Senator Olin Huntaker put down his coffee: put it down with such force it some of it sloshed out of the cup and onto the large, heavy oaken table. He rubbed his head even as he shook it. Looking around the room, he saw the familiar faces of the other members of The Intersect Committee. Donna Dandridge, Alma Smythe, Diane Beckman, Patrick Colbach, and Taylor Littleton. Although Huntaker was the Chair of the Committee, it was General Diane Beckman who ran the meetings. She had just briefed them on the current status of the Intersect. _Goddamn infernal contraption._

Huntaker had relievedly believed these meetings were about to be finished and the Intersect finally buried, a good, a very good riddance. But it hadn't worked out. The Intersect was a damned peculiar problem, the kind of problem that gets worse anytime you try to solve it, get free of it. It stuck to your hand. When you used your other hand to pull free, then it stuck to that hand. And so on. And so on, _Ad infinitum_ , _ad_ goddamned _nauseum_.

Now, Sarah Bartowski, once Sarah Walker, had the Intersect, and Nicholas Quinn had her. Team Bartowski, her husband, Chuck, John Casey and Morgan Grimes, had done everything in their power to find her, but Quinn had gotten away with her. She had not been seen in days. Team Bartowski had been searching frantically but to no result.

The version of the Intersect Sarah Bartowski had was faulty. It had been damaging her, at least her memory, when Quinn took her. It was unclear to the committee what Quinn hoped to do with Walker, but they thought the likely Quinn was hoping to use her, somehow, to get the pristine copy of the Intersect currently in a disguised DARPA laboratory in LA. Huntaker shook his head, rubbed his temples.

Fools.

Quinn. Another fool.

Although Beckman was the Director of the NSA, one of her roles on the Committee was to ensure that security around the DARPA laboratory was as heavy as personnel and payroll and disguise would permit. Huntaker knew she had done so. If Quinn made a play for the pristine version of the Intersect, he would die. If he sent Sarah Bartowski, she would die. It was that simple. That copy was squared away for now...

And Chuck Bartowski no longer had the Intersect. _At least there was that_. Things would have been... _worse_...if he had it. The only extant copy was Sarah Bartowski's faulty one, the one in her head. If Huntaker never saw another pair of those darkened sunglasses, it would be too soon. He needed the Intersect to go away. To goddamn go away. His life would be so much...simpler. He'd hated that movie anyway-what was it? _Risky Business_? With the goddamn sunglasses. Yes, _Risky Business,_ the Intersect was always a risky business.

ooOoo

Beckman surreptiously watched Huntaker rub his temples. He seemed more vexed than usual, and that was worthy of notice. He'd hated the Intersect from the beginning, and seemed committed to hating it more as the years had gone by. Beckman wasn't entirely sure he was wrong to have done so, even though the Intersect had allowed Team Bartowski to do lots of good. Or rather, Chuck Bartowski with the Intersect-and with Sarah and Casey and eventually Morgan-had done lots of good. It was now clear that the Intersect was only as good as the man or woman who had it. It was a tool and nothing but a tool, for all its technical sophistication. Well, and a good tool only if it wasn't faulty in the way that the one poor Sarah got had been.

 _Where was Sarah? Where had Quinn taken her? What was he doing to her?_

Beckman had become attached to Sarah over the past few years and was deeply personally worried about her. Chuck, Beckman knew, was on the edge. That man loved that woman. He would do anything to find her. Well, Beckman was calling in a favor; she was determined to find Sarah too. An old friend from Beckman's days in the field who might know about Quinn. She would meet with her later today. Maybe she'd have some insight, help Beckman help Chuck.

ooOoo

Nicholas Quinn was pissed. _Pissed_. For Quinn, being pissed did not differentiate his days; he was always pissed. But rarely this pissed. It had all gone wrong with Sarah Bartowski. His careful planning gone to hell because the faulty damn Intersect was even more faulty than he knew. _Damn!_ Quinn wanted to howl in rage and frustration.

He had believed he could target and suppress particular memories, particular stretches of time. He wanted to recreate the Sarah Walker who existed before Burbank, Langston Graham's Enforcer. Create Quinn's Enforcer. There were various reasons for his plan-but the most important was that he wanted her to believe that she was on a mission, deep cover, and that Chuck Bartowski was her mark.

Quinn knew that such a mission-a long-term, deep-cover infiltration/seduction mission-was not Agent Walker's sort of mission. So he had to make her think she had adequate motivation: he was going to make her think that Bartowski was responsible for the deaths of Bryce Larkin and Langston Graham, and that she had known it and accepted the assignment as a result. Revenge was a powerful persuader. And, anyway, he wasn't really concerned about seduction at this point. He just needed infiltration. He needed Sarah to use Chuck Bartowski to get the pristine Intersect away from the CIA. How she did it didn't matter. She could do what she needed to to get it done. If she was as good as he believed, she'd be able to do it quickly. No 'wifely duties' would be likely required of her. Chuck Bartowski was an idiot, anyway.

But it all went wrong. His flashcards from hell blanked far more than he had intended. When he finished, she did not know she was Sarah Bartowski. She did not know she had been Sarah Walker. She did not even know that she was Sarah, or a CIA agent, or...much of anything. The amnesia was...extensive.

Quinn had worried that it was a trick at first, that she was pretending, and so he had his men beat her. Just to be sure. They went at the task eagerly, savagely. Too savagely. But he knew she wasn't faking. She was of no use to him at that point, except perhaps as a hostage, but he did not want to nurse her or tend to her. He didn't want to deal with her body, either. Blank as she was, she was no threat to him. So, he and two of his men dumped her next to the water.

She was in bad shape. She had no idea who she was. Let her try to find her way. Dumping her on the dock was, Quinn reckoned, more or less tossing a kitten in a kennel. It was a bit of evil Romantic poetry. Let nature take its course. It would serve the other Bartowski, that self-righteous, undeserving husband of hers, _right_. That man had not only had had the Intersect, he had defanged it, turned it from its proper role as securer of power, and tried to make it the securer of innocents. What a damned idiot! He had no business with the Intersect or with a woman like that.

Quinn had shown her one final, disastrous flashcard. Even tied down, her body arched in a spasm of agony, stayed arched for long, paralyzed seconds, then went wholly limp. His men untied her and threw her into the van.

ooOoo

Chuck was so worry-sick he kept forgetting to breathe. Sarah was gone. He could not find her. Quinn had taken her. _Sarah!_ The faulty Intersect had been claiming her memories before she had been taken. Who knew what it might continue to do to her? Who knew what Quinn might do?

Quinn, Chuck knew, wanted the pristine Intersect, wanted it for himself. But it seemed unlikely that Quinn was working alone. He did not have the resources, the connections to do all that needed to be done. Of course, Quinn was Quinn-power-mad and a betrayer of the first rank. Chuck's gut told him that Quinn might not be working alone, but Quinn was always working for himself, in it for himself. No doubt he believed that if he could download the pristine Intersect, then he could...sunder...ties with his benefactor and go his own way. Chuck told Beckman this. She promised to see if she could find anything, even to go to outside channels.

Chuck felt suddenly dizzy, sitting still on his couch. His Sarah-less couch. He made himself gulp some air. _Sarah. My God, Sarah, where are you? Please be ok_. _Your heart is my heart. I love you!_ Chuck dropped his head in his hands.

ooOoo

Beckman took up a spot in a corner booth far back in her the DC coffee shop. She had a slice of pound cake in front of her. But she had so far devoted no attention to it. She was drinking coffee from a large blue mug. She hadn't slept much in the past couple of weeks. She was nearly exhausted. She needed to go home and sleep for about a day, maybe two. But that wasn't going to happen today, probably not anytime soon.

She had been staring into her coffee cup as if it might tell her a secret when she realized that someone had slid into the booth. She looked up into the graceful face of Madeline Upshaw.

Beckman's immediate response was pleasure alloyed with envy. Madeline and she were old friends. They had been spies together in the 80's when Beckman's hair had been dyed dirty blonde and Madeline's deep red lacked its current streaks of gray. But other than the streaks of gray in her hair, Madeline had aged remarkably well, and retained much of the stunning beauty that she had during those early years of their friendship. She was one of Beckman's old friends, but Beckman had to admit she found Madeline's eternal youth a rankling source of envy.

Of course, Madeline had chosen a career path very different than Beckman's. One that had taken less of a toll on her, physically and psychologically. She had left regular spying and became an expert on spying and spies. Her business was very hush-hush and frowned upon officially by both the NSA and the CIA, but both made use of her from time to time, as did the intelligence agencies of numerous nations. She watched the watchers. She jokingly called herself a 'meta-spy': "I operate in the shadows cast by those who operate in the shadows," she had once jokingly explained to Beckman over drinks. Beckman normally used other folks to deal with Madeline, go-betweens. She knew that it would not be a good idea for her to be too closely linked to a woman's whose professional life was so...gray. There were other reasons too…

But Madeline had an oar in every water, intelligence-wise. Maybe she could help. Beckman did not have the time and energy to approach her circuitously.

"Diane, good to see you. You look well-but overworked, if I may say so." Madeline's richly cultured voice always made whatever she said _sound_ like a compliment. Beckman chose not to reply to that directly.

"Hello, Madeline." Pause. "I will cut to the chase. I need your help. Sarah Bartowski, formerly Sarah Walker, CIA, was kidnapped by Nicholas Quinn, formerly CIA. Quinn is after a particular piece of crucial US intelligence. I can't say anything about it, at least not in detail. But I was hoping you might have information on Quinn, an angle, something...anything.

"You _know_ I wouldn't come begging to you unless it mattered. Agent Bartowski, Sarah, is a woman I have become fond of, Madeline. This is both a matter of national security and of personal importance."

Madeline reached over the table and drew Beckman's pound cake toward herself. She grabbed the fork and cut off a sizeable bite, pulling it from the fork's tines and then eating it from her fingers. She studied Beckman's face for a moment.

"Mmhm. Carbs," she grinned, "hardly ever eat them. So, so sick of green food. But what's a girl to do? Hmmm...Quinn? Let me start by saying I know the name.

"He's been of...interest to me for a while." Madeline's voice became the voice of a file, impersonal, recitative. "Napoleonic and tornadic: obsessed with being a player, he leaves a swath of destruction behind him. A bad man. If he took Walk-um, Bartowski, that's...worrisome. He's vindictive. A bit of a psychopath. _Obsessed_ , at least that's what I hear. Chasing some mythical computer thingy that will turn him into a super spy. Comic book gonzo stuff. Most shadow folks won't touch him with a ten-foot pole, as the saying goes. Too crazy even for the bad guys." Madeline went through the ritual with another bite of pound cake.

After swallowing her second bite: "I suppose you must know most of that, though?" Madeline's intelligent gaze scrutinized Beckman.

Beckman nodded, pursing her lips. "Yes, but not that he was a pariah even among bad guys. Not surprising but worth knowing...Sarah's husband, Chuck, also an Agent," Beckman studied Madeline's face but saw nothing register in response to Chuck's name, "is convinced that Quinn is working for someone, someone who is paying the bills, as it were, but more importantly, someone who has an agenda of his or her own, one that may well not coincide with Quinn's own. What do you think?"

"I don't believe Quinn is capable of working _for_ anyone. That doesn't mean he isn't capable of _pretending_ to work for someone, of getting someone to believe it, or maybe of being himself used by someone who can outwit him. Quinn was a very capable spy at one time. I suppose in many senses he still is. It's also possible that he could have found someone who wanted to employ him to whom Quinn could not easily say 'No'. That's probably the worst-case scenario. If there's someone out there who scares Quinn…."

Beckman completed Madeline's thought, "...that person is very scary indeed. So, have you heard anything that might be of interest?"

Madeline pushed the remainder of the pound cake back toward Beckman. She looked torn for a moment, then she made a decision. "Some are saying that the mythical computer thingy may not be so mythical, Diane. There's been scuttlebutt, chatter, that there are two versions of the thingy, and that one is bad, very bad.

"Word is that its roots run back to the Ring, maybe even to Fulcrum." Madeline shrugged, but gave Beckman a sharp look. "I still bet it's a myth, hell, it sounds like some juvenile Tolkien fantasy or something, but here's the most interesting tiny bit of the chatter: There's supposed to be information in the bad thingy that complements information in the good thingy, and that reveals some very explosive, potentially government-rocking secrets. If that were true, and if Quinn were working for someone, maybe he'd be working for someone who wanted to be sure that the two thingies never...um...intersected."

Beckman suppressed a wince, steeled her facial features, and searched Madeline's eyes. If Madeline was baiting her, Beckman couldn't tell it. Maybe the word was a coincidence. Beckman made herself laugh. She'd been a spy too, a good one; she could act when she needed to do so. "That reminds me of a definition of petting I once heard: 'When the thingamajig is in the hand and the hand in the thingamajig, but the thingamajig is never in the thingamajig.'"

Madeline laughed in response. "Well, 'petting' is a word no one uses anymore, and it's just as well, since that definition needs to be forgotten." Madeline stage shivered. "We're getting _old_ , Diane." Madeline did not look like she believed it of herself. "Bottom line, Diane. I don't know anything for sure. But take what we do likely know, pretend the computer thingy does exist, and do the math. Quinn wants the good computer thingy. Say he is working for someone. Then that person must want it too. Maybe for a different reason, but still. Quinn took Agent Bartowski. Can he leverage her somehow to get to the good computer thingy? Can he make her get it for him somehow?..."

Beckman nodded once, sharply. "Right, Madeline. The _somehows_ are a big part of the problem though. I suspect that what Quinn wanted to do was to...somehow...use Sarah to find the...computer thingy, pretending that it exists. Quinn is not going to put himself into danger if he can help it. That's was part of his pattern in the CIA." Madeline nodded agreement. "Sarah has a history of doing the impossible, a fifteen-year history now, and Quinn knows that. She walks into lions' dens and routinely walks back out. But I don't see how Quinn could get her to do anything for him, short of a credible threat against her husband." Beckman thought of Sarah's mom, Emma, and sister, Molly, but right now she had no reason to think Quinn knew of their existence. "Yet, Chuck is in Burbank-alone, miserable, but safe."

Beckman knew that she couldn't safely dwell on this anymore without inviting Madeline to take too much notice of the discussion, to begin to wonder more seriously than she seemed to be wondering about...the computer thingy.

Beckman let the conversation devolve into dispiriting small talk. Madeline's life always seemed so much...shinier than Beckman's. She finished her coffee. It didn't help her much. She still felt exhausted, more now than when she started the conversation. She knew she did, because to the pleasure and envy she felt upon seeing Madeline, she had slowly, steadily been stirring in jealousy. She had promised herself not to go _there_ , not to do _that_ , but she was tired and still tiring, and she did.

Rumor was that Madeline and Roan had been an item, quite an item, tumultuous and passionate, a while ago, during a period when she and Roan were... _what_? On the outs? Not exactly. Taking a break? Not exactly. Since she and Roan had never defined exactly what they were, not for all these many years, it was impossible to say exactly what, if anything, had been or had not been going on between them when he was supposed to have had the affair with Madeline.

It was hard to rein in your emotions when you were tired. Madeline left. Beckman sat a moment longer, peering down into her empty coffee cup and then staring with disrelish at the more than half-eaten dessert. _Hard to bridle your emotions where you were tired_ , she thought again, _and when the woman who you believe had an affair with your...Roan...eats most of your pound cake_.

She rubbed her temples, cursing Madeline under her breath.

* * *

 **A/N2** And what of our favorite amnesiac? More next time in Chapter 2, "Emissary".


	3. Chapter 2: Emissary

**A/N1** Our story begins in earnest.

Thanks for reading and reviewing.

Don't own Chuck.

* * *

ACT I

CHAPTER TWO

Emissary

* * *

Beckman's cell phone vibrated her from sleep, making a wooden sound on the nightstand. She picked it up and looked at the time before pressing the button to answer it. 4:42 am. The call was from Madeline Upshaw. Too early for Madeline, but Beckman had to answer.

"Diane, sorry to call in the wee hours, I know how _we_ need our beauty sleep, but I just got a bit of intel I thought I should pass onto you. Your people may find it tomorrow, but we...well, _it is what we do_. Faster than anyone else. Spy on spies. My analysts run daily checks on known aliases of intelligence officers and others…" Madeline was clearly not in a hurry to tell Beckman too much more about her operation. "Anyway, a little while ago the computer coughed something up and my analyst called me.

"A Rebecca Franco checked into a motel not too far from the docks in San Diego. We tapped into the video-feed and I am sending you a snippet now…"

Beckman received the snippet and played it on her phone. It was grainy and low-quality, but it certainly looked like Sarah Bartowski checking into the motel. Beckman watched the video a second time. Yes, the woman really did look like Sarah. But she looked...odd. The wrong sort of clothes. She moved stiffly. Why would Sarah be checking into a motel in San Diego, one near the docks? Where was she going?

But the main question was: why hadn't she contacted Chuck? Beckman knew if Sarah had contacted Chuck, he would have contacted her. But he hadn't contacted Beckman, so Sarah hadn't contacted Chuck.

Beckman was immediately torn. Should she tell Chuck? What the _hell_ was going on?

"Diane, she checked in for one night. Paid cash. So far as the video allows us to tell, she is still there. Is there anything you want me to do?"

"No, not right now, Madeline. Thanks for the help, especially at this time of night...or morning. I will get back to you if I need anything. Can you continue to look for signs of Quinn? Particularly, any sign that he might be in or around San Diego?"

"Sure. G'night, Diane." As the call ended, Beckman heard Madeline apologize to someone for the noise. She tried not to let her imagination run away with her. Roan was in California, not DC.

Beckman rolled out of her bed and put on her slippers. She left her bedroom and went into her study. She sent the video from her phone to her computer. She watched it a few more times. Unfortunately, it was video only, no audio. As she watched the video again, she noticed that Sarah (she was sure now that it was Sarah) was flirting with the clerk. He was tall, thin, curly-headed. Maybe Sarah did have a type, after all.

But It was unlike Sarah Bartowski to flirt with a man. Ever since the Shaw nightmare ended (Beckman choked back a mouthful of still-bitter residual guilt), ever since Sarah had informed Beckman that she and Chuck were dating exclusively, Beckman had never known Sarah actually to flirt with a man. She had pretended to flirt once or twice on missions, but she had not actually flirted. She was with Chuck, really with him. Sarah was not the type to stray, not even into flirtation, much less anything else. But, on the video, the interaction looked like actual flirting. That was even more confusing-or anyway it added to Beckman's confusion.

Beckman picked up a pencil and wrote down a couple of questions about Sarah that were bothering her. It always helped her to see the questions written down. It did again. As she stared at them, she had a thought.

Carina Miller was in Tijuana, working on a joint NSA/DEA task force, a mission against one of the cartels. Although Carina was there, the DEA's part in the early stages of the mission was simply advisory; they'd play a larger, more important role later. Carina could be in San Diego, could be at the motel, in less than an hour's time, once she got started.

Beckman put in a call to Miller. It was likely, given the time difference and Carina's well-known nocturnal habits, that she was still awake. In bed, perhaps, but still awake.

ooOoo

Beckman ended her call with Carina. Carina had been out the door before Beckman ended the call. She was due to report in as soon as she'd found Sarah and figured out what was going on. Beckman did not read Carina in on the Intersect. She left Quinn's motivations and the causes of Sarah's possible condition vague. She had warned Carina to be careful, that Sarah's psychological condition was fragile. She hoped that would be enough.

But Beckman was now dithering, having second thoughts. Maybe she should have read Carina in. But Beckman's instincts, as always, were conservative. So even though she brought her phone back up and almost called Carina twice, she did not do it.

Instead, she sent a text to Ellie Woodcomb. She needed advice from someone who had a genuine understanding of the Intersect and of Sarah. She asked Ellie to call her at her earliest convenience. She hated to phone for fear of waking Ellie's daughter, Clara. She also knew that anything she told Ellie would likely end up getting all the way to Chuck, carried to him, if not by Ellie herself, then by Devon, her husband. Better to wait and see if Carina could figure out what was going on.

ooOoo

Carina was over the border and closing in on the address of Sarah's motel. The whole situation had Carina badly agitated, disconcerted. The last she knew, Sarah and Chuck were happy, settled and settling, ready to give up on the spy game, ready to start their own business, and ready to start a family. They'd been _good_. Sarah's word. Now, according to Beckman, Sarah was having problems, psychological episodes, memory losses. Sarah was checked in at a dump motel not far from the docks in San Diego, and evidently no one, most puzzlingly Chuck, knew where she was until Beckman found her-or someone found her for Beckman.

Beckman wanted Carina to find Sarah and take her to Chuck, or if she refused ( _if she refused? What the hell?_ ) she was to take her to a safe house in San Diego and keep her there until Beckman told her otherwise.

Carina had to admit it. She was frightened for her friend. Sarah had gone through so much in her life, and so much in the past five years. She and Chuck had sacrificed, seriously sacrificed, to be together. Suffered. They had fought for their relationship, fought with the government, other people, even with each other, and for years. Sarah had been happy, truly happy, since she and Chuck had finally gotten together. What had gone wrong?

Beckman, Carina knew, played her cards up against her vest, not just close to it. The little general was keeping Carina in the twilight if not the full dark. But Carina also trusted Beckman-or she had come to over the past few years. If she was keeping Carina ignorant, it was not to manipulate her, but to keep her or others...someone...safe. Still, Carina didn't like this feeling of driving in the dark to face darkness. Why wasn't Chuck with Sarah or on his way to her? _Sarah, girl, what is going on? Poor Chuckles: you must be frantic._

ooOoo

The woman woke up. She had no memory of hearing anything, but she knew she had. Someone was stalking down the hallway. Trying to move silently. The woman knew that attempting to move silently created its own peculiar sound when not entirely successful. This attempt was not entirely successful. Hardly any attempt ever was.

She shook her head gently, trying to dislodge the sleepiness, the haziness, that still gripped her. It took a moment.

She quickly rolled out of the bed, forcing herself to contain her moan. Her beaten body had stiffened and grown sorer as she slept. She embraced and inhabited her pain, controlling it from within it, as she threw her dress over her head. She put on her shoes as she heard the stalker stop at her door. Light from the hallway, shining beneath the door, showed that someone was standing there.

A weapon. The woman needed a weapon. She grabbed the extra shoelace from her pocket, wrapping on end of it around one hand, the other end around the other hand. It was far from ideal, but it was better than nothing. _Much better: he had used such a weapon before._ Her hands remembered, even if her mind did only after her hands had. A shoelace could kill, had killed. _Oh, my God, what have I done? What have I been?_

 _Enforcer._

But, then, even as her mind gyred and gimbled, a soft knock on the door. And a voice, a woman's voice, an urgent undertone. Friendly. _Friendly?_ "Hey, hey, in there, it's _me_. Let me in, Blondie."

 _Blondie?_ For a split second that seemed familiar. The voice too. Another scrap of memory. _A female figure in a mask, all in black. A makeshift cudgel-soap in a stocking. Goldfish flopping breathlessly on the floor._ _Dying._ The scrap was gone. But the engulfing panic that came with it...

 _Violence and death are not features of your job; they are its very form. Do. Your. Job! Seize the initiative. Strike first!_

Another soft knock. The voice, no longer familiar but more obviously urgent. "Let me in. C'mon. I know you are in there. Are you ok? It's me, _Carina_."

 _Enforcer, enforce!_

The woman's head was imploding. The pain was staggering. Nonsense eclipsing sense. Mind caving in. She nearly fell.

When the pain lessened, she stepped toward the door, cautiously, but toward it. _Why?_ She peeked through the door and saw an attractive redhead standing almost against the door. The woman let the shoelace fall off one hand and used the other to open the door. She braced herself as she did, keeping her body behind the door as she opened it, and only looking around it.

The redhead saw her and blew out a breath. She took one step into the room when the woman saw the gun in the redhead's hand. She jammed her shoulder into the door and pushed it with all her power. It swung hard into the redhead, knocking her to the floor. She'd had no chance to react; she toppled.

The woman swung the door back open and, despite her stiffness and soreness, she leaped onto the redhead, _Carina_?, before Carina could get off the floor. As the woman leaped, she wrapped the shoelace around her other hand, and, astride the redhead's midsection, she got the shoelace behind the redhead's head and twisted it tight around her neck. Before the shoelace closed off her throat, the redhead spoke two words, her eyes rolling back into her head: "Sarah? Walker?"

The woman, _Sarah_?, pulled the shoelace as tight as she could. The redhead eventually went limp, her grip on her gun loosened. The woman got one hand free of the shoelace and she grabbed the gun. She also grabbed the redhead's large purse. She stood up. The redhead did not move.

The woman, _Sarah_ , felt in her pocket for the claim ticket from the pawn shop. She was wearing everything she owned. She ran down the hallway and into the elevator. As the elevator went down, she dug through the purse. There were things she wanted to look at more carefully, but she had one thing she was hoping to find. Car keys. There! Sarah latched onto them, looking at the make of car they belonged to. A Ford.

She got outside into the parking lot. She pressed the unlock button on the fob and saw a black Explorer's turn signals flash. She ran to it and jumped in. She started the engine and the car practically threw itself out of the lot and onto the street.

ooOoo

As she drove away from the motel, Sarah began to shake all over. She had to pull off onto the side of the road. _What had she just done?_ She had seen the gun and attacked. Attacked another person. And with brutal, deadly efficiency. _Had she killed the redhead?_ She didn't know. The redhead looked dead on the floor. Sarah felt sick, cold, devastated.

Had the woman come to kill her? She couldn't risk finding out. But if so, why? The woman had called her Sarah. _Sarah._ It meant nothing to her. But it was a name. She knew Rebecca Franco was not her name. She did not know that Sarah was not her name. She just did not know if it was her name. _Goddamn it!_ And then it occurred to her. The purse. She rummaged through it. A black pass case. Inside, a DEA badge. Carina Miller. It looked legitimate.

She had killed a DEA agent. Killed her. Maybe. Why would a DEA agent be hunting her? The DEA agent seemed to know her, but why did she have her gun out? Questions without answers. Answers without questions. She was so lost.

She looked at her hands. The marks, the bruised indentations made by the shoelaces, could still be seen, blue and red around the backs of her hands. And then she knew something about herself, knew it up from her bones, an upsurge of conviction from the very center of her. She was a killer. What she knew of her skill set geared into her visceral conviction: she was a chameleon, an actress, deadly.

She could attack without thought, without compunction. She had a head full of tactical and strategic maxims. She reached into the passenger seat and picked up the gun she'd taken from Carina Miller. She knew it intimately; it was an extension of her hand. Without a thought or misstep, she broke it down and put it back together. The whole procedure had taken her almost no time and she had done it while also paying attention to the passing cars.

She put the gun into the purse. Digging around hurriedly jin the purse, she found a phone at the bottom. It was locked and she had no idea about the password. She turned it off, then pulled the back off of it and pulled out the SIM card. Maybe she could find a way into it later.

She put the disabled phone in the purse. There was a wallet, with several hundred dollars in it, as well as a couple of credit cards. The name on the cards was not Carina Miller. Had someone sent a killer after a killer?

 _Killer Kills Killer_ : headline. Wordy palindrome.

The woman looked into the rearview mirror, preparing to pull back into traffic, but then she shifted her focus. Looking at her own blue eyes in the mirror, she spoke to herself, grimly, her heart sinking even as she tightened her grip on the brutal identity.

.  
"Hello...killer. Hello, Sarah. Hello, Sarah Walker."

It was better to be an awful something than not to be anything at all. Hadn't Shakespeare said something like that, one of his characters? Had she forgotten Shakespeare too? Yes? No?

Hamlet?

 _Help me, Hamlet_.

 _I don't know who is who; I don't know a hawk from a handsaw._

* * *

 **A/N2** And with that learned misquotation, this chapter ends. Tune in next time for Chapter 3, "Corpse".


	4. Chapter 3: Corpse

**A/N1** Take a breath. And on we go.

Thanks for reading and reviewing!

Don't own Chuck.

* * *

ACT II

CHAPTER THREE

Corpse

* * *

A little boy knelt in the motel hallway. He had a naked Barbie doll in one hand, a naked Ken doll in the other. Both dolls had seen better days. The dolls' faces had both worn partially away: Barbie looked bewildered; Ken looked depressed.

The little boy's mother was pushing her maid's cart into the hallway, exiting the motel's rat-trap service elevator. She worked the late night shift and normally could not find a sitter for little Roger. That meant he spent nights with her in the motel, mostly trailing silently behind her, but on occasion, like tonight, surging ahead. He knew the motel inside and out, having practically grown up in it. His mother, Rosy, had her gaze fixed on the top of the maid's cart. She had a tray of small soaps riding unsteadily there, and she did not want to spill them and have to pick them up.

"Momma! Look! A dead lady, right here in the hallway! Her neck looks funny." Roger piped this with excitement.

Rosy was still focused on the soap tray; she did not look toward him. "Right, Roger. Now pick up your Barbies and bring them with us. We have empty rooms to check, beds to make, towels to launder."

She shook her head. More and more often, rooms were being rented for an hour or two, and then abandoned, deeds done. The owner, instead of fighting the trend, was hoping to make extra money from it, and so he had Rose come in at night to clean any of the 'hour rentals' as the owner liked to call them. The work wasn't usually hard. More often than not, all that needed attention in the room, or, at any rate, all the owner instructed her to attend to-was the bedding, the bathroom and the trash cans. If things had happened on the desks or floors...well, she wasn't instructed to do anymore.

Rosy had persistent nightmares about what a blacklight in the motel rooms would reveal. "Probably more spatter than the St. Valentine's Day Massacre," she muttered aloud to no one, not even herself.

"No, momma, there really is a dead lady." Roger's high voice was insistent.

Rosy lifted her eyes to look down the hall at Roger, only to see him dangling his naked Barbie over the face of a corpse...a dead woman, her red hair spread out on the floor...

 _Oh, goddamn._ Rosy screamed.

ooOoo

Carina's eyes snapped open. When they had shut, it had been with Sarah's intent and yet lost countenance over her, no recognition in her clouded blue eyes. Sarah's strong, hard hands had been...strangling her.

Now, Carina's eyes open, she was staring into the plastic blue gaze of a naked Barbie doll. Carina tried to shriek, but her throat was swollen, and the sound was more like a bubbling hiss. Carina then heard a shriek, but it was not her. The Barbie was suddenly dropped prone across Carina's face.

"Roger, c'mere, right now." Carina turned her head ( _God, her neck!_ ) and saw two pudgy legs running up the hallway, and a cleaning cart in the distance. Carina sat up and began to look and feel around her, trying to find her gun.

"Blondie." She spat the word like a choked curse. "She took my gun." Carina got up, looked around some more, then pushed angrily on the door of Sarah's room. The door swung open, its hinges sprung, keeping it from latching. She walked through the room, scanning it, then she realized: "And my purse. Shit!"

 _What is_ wrong _with you, Sarah. You nearly killed me. Maybe you even tried. But you_ didn't _. Thank God. For both of us._

Carina felt herself growing angrier. She fought the response back, made herself breathe, calm down. She knew Sarah, had known her for years. Sarah had saved Carina's life more times than Carina could count, probably more times than Carina knew.

Something was seriously wrong with Blondie.

Carina heard tentative footsteps. The motel maid was creeping closer to her, the little boy clutching a Ken doll peeking at Carina from behind the woman.

"Are you ok, lady?" The woman asked.

Carina nodded. "Long story. I'm fine. Cute kid."

She bent down and picked up the shoelace from the floor. The maid looked at her, puzzled. Carina waved the string in the air. "Souvenir." Bending down once more, she picked up the naked Barbie. She looked at it and shivered involuntarily.

Carina tossed the doll to the woman, who caught it smoothly. "Nice catch." She turned and walked to the elevator she had ridden up.

Downstairs, she demanded the use of a phone from the night clerk. The drowsy man handed her his out-of-date cell, and Carina dialed Beckman's number.

Beckman answered after one ring. "Who is this?"

"Carina."

"Thank God. How is she, Carina?"

"Homicidal."

" _What?_ "

ooOoo

Chuck was sitting next to the fountain outside his-and Sarah's-apartment. He could not sleep in the empty bed. It seemed so empty that he was unsure he was in it. Worry would not allow sleep to come. In his hand, he held the picture he'd sketched for Sarah, a drawing of the two of them and a little person, a baby, outside Sarah's dream home. His dream home.

He'd drawn it so that she wouldn't forget. Had she? They'd started trying to realize that dream. His mind swept through memories of caresses and gasps shared on the bullet train in Japan. _Chuck and Sarah and trains._ It seemed now like he had never touched her; it seemed now like it had been forever since he touched her; it seemed now like he could still smell her on his skin.

Chuck felt like the life was draining from his body the longer she was gone. Soon, he'd be only a corpse.

He looked down at his unlaced Chucks, laces dangling. He'd been having trouble breathing. Now his heart was having trouble beating. As he sat, feeling like he had to will each breath, each beat, he saw the lights go on downstairs in his sister's place.

Who was up at this hour?

ooOoo

 _Earlier..._

Carina knew Sarah's room number, Beckman had told her, so she entered the motel and walked past the front desk without pause. The balding clerk looked up at her, grinned knowingly, and looked back down. He was working a crossword puzzle.

As she went up the elevator, Carina debated how to approach Sarah. They had a longstanding tradition of trying to sneak up on each other as the first step of reunions, but that was not a good idea now. If Sarah were having problems, the best thing would just be the straightforward approach. Knock. Ask to come in.

That was her plan until the elevator door opened. She saw a man in the hallway. She was unsure if he had been standing there a moment before but he was walking away from Sarah's door. He did not look back. Perhaps he was just another guest, up late, sleepless. But seeing him rattled Carina a bit. Beckman had said nothing to suggest Sarah was in immediate danger. Beckman's obvious worry, never voiced but understood by Carina, was that Sarah might be running-but from what or to what Carina could not understand. _Damn Beckman and her secrets_. Carina pulled her pistol out from beneath the light jacket she had on. She kept it against her body, out of sight, but ready.

She knocked softly on the door.

ooOoo

Carina huffed before she answered Beckman's question. "She tried to kill me…" Carina fished in her pocket and retrieved the string, looked closely at it, "with a shoelace. I'm ok, though. Unconscious for a few minutes, I guess. Neck's sore. Never really been on the serious receiving end from the Ice Queen before. Not a place I ever want to be again." Carina was rubbing her neck.

"My God, Carina, I never imagined you would be in danger from Sarah. I'm sorry." Beckman sincerity, guilt was evident on the phone. "But you...have her?"

"No, in fact, she has my gun, my badge, my phone and my car." Carina kept her voice low so that the crossword clerk would not hear-but it was hard: she wanted to yell.

"That's...not good. And she said nothing to you? Offered no explanation?"

Carina replayed the moments again. "No. But here's the thing. I swear to God she did not know who I was. Her eyes. I was a stranger, and she thought she was in danger. And I made a mistake, General. I had my gun out still when she opened the door."

"Out? Still?" Beckman was a beat behind.

"There was a man in the hallway. He might have been standing in front of Sarah's door when the elevator opened. He walked away, but it gave me the tingles. I pay attention to my tingles." Carina was unapologetic.

"And you should. We have to take seriously the possibility that someone else is trying to find her-maybe worse-as well as us. I will send someone for you, take you to an NSA safe house for the night. By morning, I will have another gun, car, and phone for you.

"As of now, I am detaching you from the operation in Mexico. I need your help. I think Sarah needs your help." Carina could hear Beckman reaching a decision. "I will read you in later, Agent Miller. You have my word. I am sincerely sorry. But right now I have another call coming, one I must take."

"Thanks, General. I'm worried. I'm...worried."

"So I am, Carina. So am I."

ooOoo

Clara had a nightmare. Ellie had gotten up to comfort her. (It had been Devon's turn last time, so it was Ellie's this time.) The little girl had gone right back to sleep. But Ellie had not. She hadn't really been asleep any way. Worry about Sarah and Chuck had kept her tossing and turning. She padded around in the darkened apartment for a minute, then noticed her phone's signal light flashing. A text. She picked up the phone. The text was from General Beckman. Ellie hit a button to return the call, and as she waited for an answer, she turned on the lights in the living room.

ooOoo

Sarah was driving aimlessly. She had been for a long time. That might make her hard to find, but it also meant that she had no plan. She found herself in the suburbs after making a series of random turns.

The black outside was turning grey, forecasting dawn. In the half-light, Sarah looked around herself, at the largely similar homes.

 _She was standing in front of a suburban house. A car was pulling out of the driveway. She was waving. The light reflected on the windshield hid the driver from view, but she felt a drenching of affection, but affection colored by frustration and sadness._

The image was gone as quickly as it came but it left a strong aftertaste of affection and frustration and sadness.

 _Was that Mr. Anderson leaving? Who was driving that car? Was I...in love with him? What was wrong between us?_

Sarah forced herself back into the present. She began to think tactically. Her body was hurting all over and she still needed rest. Maybe she could find a house that was unoccupied. She began to look more closely at the houses when…

 _She was younger. Driving a convertible. Music playing._ God, did I listen to that? _She felt overwhelming panic. She was looking at a house..._ The house I just passed... _and there were law enforcement officers all around it. Her dad!_ Her dad? _He was being arrested. But they had a plan. She drove on past the house, hardly able to see, tears distorting her vision…_

She pulled over and stopped the car. She was weeping. She was at sea in loss.

Wiping her eyes, she realized that she had not been making random turns. No, some old habit had taken over; at some point, she'd started driving a route that she remembered, but did not remember that she remembered. She'd driven...home? No, yes, no...sort of. She and her father had lived in the house down the street. But it was never home.

She had knowledge she could not explain. That day had been one of the most decisive of her life. Evidently, she had been on the wrong side of the law for a long time. Try as she might, she could not force any more memories. But she knew that the day had been another day of affection and frustration and sadness. And she knew one more thing: that particular mix of emotions-its relative proportions shifting-was distressingly familiar to her. _What has my life been like?_

She started driving again. After a few minutes, she spotted a house with a _For Sale_ sign in front and several newspapers in the yard. Sarah drove around the block and parked in a line of other cars. She walked back to the house she had spotted. It was still gray out. No one was stirring yet.

She walked up the driveway and around to the back door of the house. She had been scrutinizing it as she walked. She looked more carefully once she was in the back of the house. No sign of an alarm system. She dug in the DEA agent's purse and found a couple of stray bobby pins in the bottom. She picked the lock and was inside before it dawned on her that she could pick a lock. She was becoming more and more frightened of finding out all of which she was capable.

The house was set up for prospective buyers. Everything looked staged. Sarah walked through the house, memorizing its layout, without knowing or wondering why. She was pleased to find a bedroom on the ground floor. She went into the kitchen and opened the fridge. There were numerous bottles of water and a sealed, half-empty container of chocolate chip cookies. Sarah got a bottle of water and three of the cookies. She went into the first-floor bedroom, the master, and, seated on the bed, she ate in the thin dawn light. She washed the cookies down with water.

She leaned against the headboard of the bed. She made herself take a breath, relax.

 _Rest is a weapon_. She relaxed slowly and began to drift into sleep.

 _She was feeding a beautiful girl, a toddler, a piece of cookie from her hand. The little girl smiled at her, a chocolate-smeared smile._

Sarah sat up. _My child? No. Maybe. No._

Sarah did not know what to make of the memory, except to note that it too came with affection, but this time not mixed with frustration and sadness. This time, it had been mixed with...hope.

She fell asleep on top of the made bed.

ooOoo

Chuck expected the light to go out. The light in Ellie's apartment stayed on, however. It would be dawn soon.

Chuck pulled his phone from the pocket of the hoodie he had thrown over his pajamas. He texted Ellie:

 _Are you awake? I am outside by the fountain._

He put the phone down and waited.

* * *

 **A/N2** Darkest before dawn? So they say, so they say. Tune in for Chapter 4 "The Push and Shove of Being".


	5. Chapter 4: The Push and Shove of Being

**A/N** Act I is behind us. Now, Act II.

Thanks for reading and reviewing!

No more updates this week. Chapter 5 will not be posted until next week.

Don't own Chuck.

* * *

ACT II

CHAPTER FOUR

The Push and Shove of Being

* * *

"Dr. Woodcomb? Ellie?" Beckman answered the phone.

"General, I was up. I saw your text." Ellie's voice sounded curious, but definitely on its way to worried. "Is there news about Sarah?"

"Yes, and I will go ahead and tell you it's not good news...Not the worst," Beckman added hastily, when she heard Ellie's intake of breath, "she's alive. But the Intersect, or Quinn, or both, have done more damage…"

"Oh, God, no. Tell me everything you can, please, General."

Beckman supplied Ellie a brief but exact narration of what she knew, up to and including to the attack on Carina. Ellie was silent, clearly upset. Beckman told that Ellie that she had emailed her the video of Sarah at the motel front desk. Ellie retrieved her laptop from her bag and watched it, providing running commentary to Beckman as she did.

"Yes, that's Sarah. But she's moving strangely. She's been hurt. That clerk...don't you think he sort of looks like Chuck? See, Sarah has noticed. No, she's not _really_ flirting with him; her response is...well, a _somatic_ memory, I think. Her body reacting in a way that does not reach full consciousness, full rational uptake. She can't give the reason for her action, but there is one. Two things are happening at once. She's pretending to flirt but is also genuinely affected by the somatic memory.

"I agree, it looks like she is blushing a bit, but notice that she is not actually paying attention to the clerk unless he's attending to her; the blush isn't... _about_ him. The response is to someone else, a somatic memory of someone else, a memory that she feels but isn't conscious of as such. Chuck.

"She's manipulating the clerk. She's good. I've never really... _seen_ her do that, although I knew she could, _intellectually_ knew she could..."

They talked for a moment more about the video before Ellie pushed for more information on the attack.

After listening, Ellie added, "We know the faulty Intersect had damaged and was still damaging Sarah's memory. I am reasonably sure now that large-scale damage has been done to her memory. There's no other explanation ready to hand for the attack. Carina's details all fit.

"But it is strange: her somatic memory, her embodied habits, skills, obviously even some emotional reactions, are still in very much in place. That's strange. But not unprecedented in amnesiacs. And it is a hopeful sign. This sort of somatic memory is not the same as the personal memory we think of first when we think of memory, the internal pictures, items that provide our sense of ourselves as having been present in particular past moments. But the kinds of memory are connected and the somatic memories can lead to the recovery of the personal ones, if they remain to be recovered. Sorry, Diane. _Doctor-speak,_ I know. Occupational hazard."

Beckman was silent for a moment, processing. When she spoke, it was not as the General, but as someone who cared for Sarah.

"No, I understand. But, Ellie, Sarah's embodied responses are the responses of a spy, of someone quite deadly, a trained assassin…Before Burbank, she was Langston Graham's _Enforcer_..."

"I know, Diane," Ellie said softly, her voice complicated by thoughts she now felt comfortable sharing, "...Sarah and I have had some...talks during the past months. Of course, they were talks with _Sarah_ , so I don't have lots of details, and, frankly, I didn't need them, didn't push. But Sarah wasn't, Sarah _isn't_ , an _assassin by nature_.

"She was an assassin by miseducation, by _mis-nurture._ Her father and then, well, pardon me, Diane, but then, _you people_ , the CIA, NSA." She heard Beckman sigh. "Yes, her responses are an assassin's responses, but _a reluctant assassin's_ responses. Sarah _Bartowski_ did not come to be _ex nihilo_ ; she was always in there too, if I can put it that way. She was always a real possibility for Sarah Walker.

"Remember, Diane, Carina is _alive_. Sarah could have killed her, but she didn't. _She didn't_. She is deadly; you said it. How many times do you know of when she failed...to terminate a target?" Beckman offered no number; that was her answer. "Exactly," Ellie concluded. "If she had really wanted to kill Carina, Carina would be a corpse.

"We have to save my sister...And wait, a really important question: does Chuck know any of this?"

"No, I haven't told him. I wanted to try to get a handle on the situation before I told him, but I suppose he has to know. Do you want to tell him?"

Ellie did. "Yes, yes, I will tell him…"

"I'm sorry, Ellie, I just knew how hard this would be for him and I didn't want him jumping in before we knew…" Beckman let the sentence trail off into nothing. The rationalization already sounded empty to her.

Ellie broke the momentary silence, swallowing her annoyance. "Can you have Carina meet me and Chuck, after she has gotten some rest, and after she's made the drive up? No, not here at the apartment. At Castle. Have her text me a time."

ooOoo

Beckman ended the call to Ellie and then called Carina, relaying Ellie's request and then reading Carina in, giving her a succinct but exact recap of the Intersect saga.

She then ended that call and put the phone down. She rubbed her eyes. The night had not helped with her exhaustion. Not one damn bit.

She considered calling Roan. Hearing his voice might help her cope...but then she thought of Madeline and decided against it. Seeing Madeline had made the rumors about her and Roan weigh more heavily on Beckman. Maybe she'd call Roan tomorrow, after she'd gotten a few hours of sleep, when she'd be less likely to try to corner him, to force him to confirm or deny the rumor.

But she realized that she couldn't sleep, she needed to make one more call. Huntaker needed to know what was going on. Likely, the Intersect Committee would meet sometime tomorrow...rather, today. It was almost time to go to the office. She picked up her phone again and called the Senator.

ooOoo

Sarah was dreaming.

 _She was eating at a Thai restaurant. Her meal was delicious. She asked the waiter what it was._

" _Cobra. A new dish."_

 _Her companion-she couldn't see his face clearly-spoke. "Me? I'm fantastic."_

 _Yes. Absolutely, yes. "Yes, you are."_

 _She continued. "Without you, I'm nothing but a spy…" She could feel her eyes filling with tears. "Nothing but a spy…" Her feet felt cold. She was going to have to leave him._

Her feet were cold. She woke up. For a spinning moment, she could not remember where she was. But then she did. The house. The bed. She needed to get out of it. A clock beside the bed read: 6:46 am.

She stood up and took inventory of herself. The soreness had lessened. But she was still stiff. She stretched herself, twisted around, bent at the waist: loosening up. She knew she needed to be out of the house soon.

Washing her face in the bathroom, she looked at herself in the mirror. The confrontation was not as disorienting as the one in the dressing room had been. Part of it was that she had now seen her reflection a few times, in the dressing room, the hotel, here; part of it was that she felt more like she was her body. For those first few hours, she felt like she had a body, but that it might or might not be hers.

Its numbness and stiffness and soreness had a role in that alienation, but she also could not remember being that body. If nothing else, the fight with...Carina had helped her find her way back to her body, made it feel less like a rental and more hers, her.

That fight. She felt woozy, guilt rushing over her.

 _Carina_. What had happened? It had all been so fast, so confusing, so _automatic_. Had she killed the redhead? She made herself remember-huffing to herself as she did because she could remember so little in general.

She had been strangling Carina with the shoelace. The memory made her stomach knot, but she forced herself to continue reliving it. As the redhead lost consciousness, Sarah realized that she had slackened the shoelace. Had she slackened it soon enough?

In the aftershock of it all, she had thought she killed Carina, or likely had. Now, she was less sure. She now thought she slackened the shoestring in time. That was a good thing; her stomach unknotted a little. That was in the foreground, but in the background was the larger, deeply distressing fact: she knew enough about killing to know when she was approaching the point of no return with a victim-knew it so viscerally she had not had to think about it, to have a moment of conscious realization. Automatic.

What kind of killer was she? A killer, yes, she was; she was darkly certain of that, the knowledge indubitable, bone-deep, abysmal.

But was that the final verdict? The last word before sentencing? She felt like it was not the whole story, that...

What about the wedding set? Had she been married, or had the rings been part of some pretense, some... _con_ (the word hit her like a blow) or... _cover_ (that one too). She looked at herself in the mirror again. Studied her face. Tried to do surveillance behind her own eyes.

 _Killer_.

 _Assassin_.

 _Spy._

The word from her dream.

Another word came to her mind again: ' _enforcer_ '.

 _Enforcer, enforce!_

Enforce what? For who? Why?

 _Spy._

' _C' is for heart and heart is for…?_

 _I am nothing but a spy. But I know nothing about the spy I am. I know nothing about the spy I am nothing but._ Her feeling of incompleteness haunted her.

" _Me? I'm fantastic._ "

 _Who was Mr. Fantastic_?

'Mr. Fantastic' made her think of the Fantastic Four, and then she frowned: she was a _DC_ , not a _Marvel_ girl.

 _DC, Marvel? What did that mean?_ _What was she thinking?_

Her head buzzed and crackled like a cheap transistor radio, buzzed and crackled with answerless questions.

She turned off the bathroom light, gathered her things. She slipped from the house and glided to the car. She needed to get rid of Carina's car and get another. She also needed to capitalize on the name she'd been given by Carina: 'Sarah Walker'.

 _Who is Sarah Walker_? She cast her eyes at the rearview.

 _Who am I? Who is this I in me?_

How could she find out? She realized that she had an idea. That was a surprise, wasn't it? — _Was it_? Wasn't she a...spy?

ooOoo

Ellie was driving Chuck and herself to Castle. They would use the Orange Orange entrance, as would Carina when she arrived. Or, they would if Chuck ever righted his ship.

The news about Sarah threatened to sink him. He was terrified for _her_ , Sarah, first and most importantly, but then also terrified for _them_ , and then also terrified for _himself_. He was third. He was so terrified he couldn't speak, hadn't spoken since he'd watched the video from the motel and heard the story about Carina.

Ellie knew Chuck. She knew him well enough to know that it was not just the factual predicament that was terrifying him—although it was sufficiently terrifying. But Chuck had lived in fear of Sarah leaving him, of her leaving, _period_ , since she first came to Burbank.

At first, Ellie understood, he feared that she would want to leave, then he feared that she might be reassigned, then later he feared that she would run from their relationship and its rapid development. But the underlying fear was always that he would not be _enough_ for Sarah, that she would want somewhere else, someone else, something else more than him. The fear had retreated after they had gotten engaged, and retreated farther after the wedding, but Ellie knew it never entirely surrendered.

Ellie did not share Chuck's fear that Chuck was not enough for Sarah. She knew Sarah well enough-and had watched her closely enough (for almost five years)-to know that Sarah was completely committed to Chuck. But was _this_ Sarah the committed Sarah Ellie knew, or someone else, someone new, or someone old, someone anyhow different from the committed Sarah?

ooOoo

Carina dreaded facing Chuck. Beckman made it clear he would know what had happened, but she did not want to have to face him, to tell him the story in person. She did not want to tell it at all, if for no other reason than her voice was raspy, her throat sore, her neck bruised and tender. But of course, the real reason was that she knew how much Chuck loved Sarah.

Even though she was not interested in making choices of the sort Sarah and Chuck had made, and even though she mocked the choices, she respected them. The choices were the right choices for Chuck and Sarah. She was sure of that. What had happened to them was nightmarish—yet another bizarre spy-fi twist to Sarah and Chuck's spy-fi twisty romance. But would this be the twist that untied them?

Beckman had read Carina in, into the entire Intersect saga. Carina had no choice but to believe it.

 _Believe, so that you may understand_. Huh, that year at a Catholic school wasn't wasted entirely, and she had looked _outrageous_ in the uniform...She laughed internally...

Anyway, the Intersect seemed to turn everything topsy-turvy. Hearing the story had helped bring Chuck and Sarah, and the two of them as a couple, into clarity for Carina. _The Intersect! Damn, why did anyone think_ that _was a good idea?_

Facing Chuck after the way she had treated him over the years, not knowing the burden he carried...well, Carina was ashamed of herself, and that was uncharted emotional terrain for her. And then there was Chuck's sister...

Carina was more than a little intimidated by Ellie. Carina was honest enough about herself to realize that she didn't displace much water in life—she was a hovercraft, light, agile, dancing, wakeless. Ellie was a battleship—she ran deep, displaced lots of water, left a wake behind her. None of that meant that Carina found Ellie humorless or dour or judgmental—Ellie was none of those things. Not often at any rate.

Carina felt unreal in comparison to Ellie Woodcomb, like Carina was only playing at life, like she was on the stage, stagey, while Ellie was living real life. That feeling was a rude reversal for Carina, who for years had thought that her job, with its forced exposure to shadows, and its omnipresent threat of injury or death, made her the one really living; everyone else was conniving at agreeable illusions. She felt like she was the one conniving when she was around Ellie.

Admitting it was bitter, but Carina had started to feel like that around Sarah too. Hell, she had always felt a _little_ like that around Sarah. That was one reason she'd liked to take what Sarah wanted; it seemed to balance the scales somehow, temporarily anyway, as if she could thieve some of Sarah's depth from her.

But someone else, Quinn maybe, or something else, the Intersect, really seemed to have stolen Sarah's reality from her. Carina shuddered. She and Ellie and Chuck and Beckman, they would figure this out. They had to.

ooOoo

Chuck had surprised both Ellie and Carina. He had listened carefully and with real, but controlled distress to Carina's story. After hugging Carina, he pressed her about only one detail in the story: had Carina used Sarah's name? She realized she had. She'd used both 'Sarah' and 'Walker'. Chuck's eyes widened.

"I see that's significant, Chuck, but why is it _so_ important? And I am sorry. I used her old name. Habit took over. For both of us, I guess." Carina's hand traveled to her throat.

Chuck took a quick breath and released it. "Not a problem, Carina, I understand. It is important because we can see that Sarah's still Sarah...in some ways...at least. She's in San Diego. She went to high school there. It's a city that will tap into her memories. You told Sarah her name. If her spy instincts, skills, are largely intact," Chuck swallowed hard as he looked at Carina's bruised neck, "as they seem to be, then context and need may cause her to fall back into or mobilize habits or routines formed with her father. She'll use connections he taught her to try to figure out who she is, who Sarah Walker is.

"We need to go back into the files, Graham's and the relevant others, and find out about Sarah's father. I have no idea how to contact her father, but maybe we won't need him. Maybe she'll cross paths in the present with her father's past."

Beckman had been listening in from DC, her face displayed on one of the monitors in Castle. "That's a good idea, Chuck. I will put a team of analysts on it right now." Carina nodded her agreement with the idea and Beckman's response.

Ellie broke in. "Sarah's dad involved her in his cons, so, yes, maybe you are right, Chuck. If she wants to get information on someone, that desire will engage an old habit, an old procedure," Ellie sounded more hopeful as she went on. "But it's been so long since she lived there, so many years…"

"Yes," Chuck conceded, "but Sarah's memory is faulty. It's hard to know how she's experiencing...time. Obviously, there may no longer be anyone around who her father dealt with or used—but maybe there was a pattern to her father's cons…a place, a neighborhood."

"We can hope," Beckman began, "and in the meantime, I want Chuck and Carina in San Diego. We can't use local law enforcement—the Intersect is too much a secret, and Sarah is too...dangerous...I don't want to risk exposure or...casualties. Her not killing Carina is good, but Carina is her old friend. If she feels threatened, what might she do to someone she genuinely does not know?" No one answered, so Beckman continued. "Ellie, I am going to free you up from your research duties at the hospital, tell your superiors that the NSA needs you as a classified consultant for the next week or two.

"Let's hope we can find Sarah and bring her in soon. On top of everything else, I am worried about the man Carina saw outside Sarah's motel room door. I just can't get myself to believe that his being there was a coincidence. Carina, do you remember anything more about him."

Carina narrowed her eyes, pursed her lips. "Tall, thin but not spindly, black hair. Nice ass. I'd know him again—from the rear, anyway."

Beckman's eyes rolled a bit, but she nodded. "Well, let us know if you remember anything that might help us ID him from the front."

ooOoo

Beckman clicked off the Burbank feed and picked up her phone. She had a text from Huntaker. The Intersect Committee would have a video conference in thirty minutes. She wasn't looking forward to that, although at least she wouldn't have to face Huntaker's righteous indignation in the flesh.

She leaned back in her chair, hoping to close her eyes for a few minutes. As she looked at the ceiling, she said aloud but softly. "Sarah Bartowski, come home. Let's bring the story of the Intersect to a happy end."

ooOoo

Sarah had left Carina's car in the back corner of a large parking lot, in a spot obscured by a dumpster. She had then taken a bus to the Carmel Valley branch of the San Diego Public Library.

Inside, she had found a row of computers for public use and she sat down at one on the far end next to the wall. Once on the internet, she pulled up a map of San Diego and its surroundings, allowing her eyes to pass slowly over it, waiting for a tug or spark or...something. And then it happened.

 _San Ysidro_. When she saw the name of the neighborhood, she felt an interior click. No images, no feelings, just a click, recognition. What she needed she could find there. Even if she didn't yet know what it was.

She searched for information on the motel she had stayed in. Had there been a report of a crime there? A killing? A redheaded victim? No. Sarah exhaled slowly before she realized she had been holding her breath.

Who was, no, who _is_ Carina Miller?

Sarah wasn't in a huge hurry. She wanted to search the names, _Sarah Walker_ , _Carina Miller,_ but she was afraid doing so might set off alarm bells. Evidently, _Rebecca Franco_ had. Someone knew Sarah had used that name in the past. She was going to have to be careful and not dredge up another name from God knows what place in her head.

She moved to a carrel with high sides and sat down. She started digging through Carina's purse again.

She'd seen the DEA badge, so she set it aside. She found various expected items. Makeup, lipstick, sunglasses (very expensive, very nice), a brush, and a notepad. She flipped through it. There were names and phone numbers on several pages, all names of men. But there was one woman's name and a number. _Zondra_. Sarah felt a stab of anger, and then a wave of relief as she stared at the name. She couldn't bring any face to mind, or any memory, but she felt like she knew Zondra. She did not understand her layered reaction.

She felt down to the bottom of the bag, and then noticed a zip pocket in its side she had not noticed before. She unzipped it and a cheap cell phone was revealed. A burner. Untraceable.

It was not locked, no passcode. Sarah went to _Contacts_ and found only one number, but no name. The call log showed that the phone had called that number several times in the last few months and received calls from it as well. After a quick comparison, Sarah knew it was not Zondra's number, or the number of any of the men listed.

She looked up hastily, the hair on her neck standing, a warning. She saw a man move quickly behind a display of magazines. It might have been nothing, but she felt immediately vulnerable, spied upon.

But how could anyone have followed her without her noticing them? She had kept a careful watch, she realized, even though she had never told herself to do so or even consciously realized that she was. She just knew she had. It was what she did.

That puzzle of her name would have to wait. She needed answers, yes, but San Ysidro would wait. Maybe she could turn this situation to her advantage. If someone was following her, then that person must know who she was, must know some things about her.

ooOoo

The video meeting of the Intersect Committee had been as awful as Beckman expected. Huntaker had blamed all of this on her, and had thundered at her about a rogue spy. Worse yet, he had yelled, a rogue, US-trained assassin, out of her mind and on the loose in Southern California, a faulty version of the US's biggest intelligence secret in her head, making her dangerous along many, many (Huntaker had doubled up the word) different dimensions.

Huntaker demanded a termination order for Sarah Bartowski. Beckman had been able to muster enough support to force Huntaker to wait, but he had then turned the tables on her and gotten a majority to agree with him that if, in 48 hours, Sarah Bartowski was not in custody, the termination order would be given.

"In 48 hours I want her behind bars or in a body bag!"

That had been Huntaker's parting shot.

Beckman now desperately needed sleep. She needed to talk to Roan for all sorts of reasons, but mainly to hear his voice. He could always relax her, even at a distance.

But she did not sleep or call Roan; instead, she made a decision that might ruin her career. Damn Huntaker. She called the DARPA lab in LA where the pristine Intersect was being researched, and she told them to prepare for a visit from Chuck Bartowski, who would be downloading the current version.

She called Chuck and Carina. They were finishing up in Castle, about to head to San Diego, and she rerouted them to the top-secret lab. She also explained that they were now on the clock.

47 hours until the termination order. Beckman told her secretary to get her a flight to Burbank _asap_.

The final act of the Intersect story would close with the pristine version salvaging the faulty one, or so Beckman devoutly hoped. Huntaker had called Sarah 'beyond salvage'. But Huntaker did not know Chuck Bartowski-how far he would go for his wife. And Sarah, well, that was a woman not easy to kill.

ooOoo

Nicholas Quinn turned off the computer, the flashing light at the Carmel Valley branch of the San Diego Public Library swallowed by the green-black that engulfed the screen. The tracking compound he'd injected Sarah Bartowski with had turned out to be a good idea. His boss had said so.

God, Quinn hated having to pretend to take orders. Soon, he'd stop pretending. Still, the praise was sweet-and of course completely deserved.

Quinn smiled to himself. His ideas _were_ good. He had, he liked to tell himself, a geometrical mind. No one could outthink him. He was not worried about Sarah Bartowski, although he was surprised she'd made it alive off the docks. A defenseless morsel like that should've attracted all the dock vermin, been finished there…

Oh, well, the world was a confused place, all push and shove, both for those who hoped for good and those who hoped for...not-good. _The rain falls on the just and the unjust_.

Quinn patted himself mentally on the back. He was no lowbrow criminal. He was a Renaissance Man, a miniature version of Milton's Satan. Bad, yes, but witty, urbane, sophisticated, brilliant. With the Intersect, he could do away with the 'miniature'' and mount a ladder to scale to the full heights of Milton's Satan!

What a _terror_ he would be once he was Intersected! He would do _such_ things, commit crimes of awful majesty…

One window of his hideout, an old factory building he had commandeered secretly, shattered. Glass filled the air, rained onto the floor. One of Quinn's henchmen yelled something incoherent. A canister on the floor, the projectile that shattered the window, spewed a mustard yellow gas.

Quinn's throat scorched and closed. His lungs burst into flames. As he suffocated, he wondered: _is this what brimstone smells like?_

And then Nicholas Quinn and his henchmen were dead.

* * *

 **A/N2** I always thought Quinn was a putz, frankly, too small, too inconsequential to be the show's final villain. Let's see if _perhaps_ we can do better...I mean _worse..._ Well, you know what I mean _._ Tune in next time for Chapter 5 "Drone and Dive".


	6. Chapter 5: Drone and Dive

**A/N1.** Got to this to revise it a day or two earlier than I expected, so I will go ahead and post it.

I fear I overestimated the number of readers who would know the Ludlum book from which I have borrowed motifs. Apologies. If you don't know it, much of what I am doing may seem willfully strange. Sorry about that, but I hope that by now you are beginning to see how this goes, what it is doing, and how it is like and unlike the _Chuck_ finale.

Among other things, we are exploring _past Sarah_ by following _amnesiac Sarah_ as she works to come to herself, as she works to once again become _Sarah Bartowski_. (Of course, that is not quite how she understands what she is doing.)

Thanks for reading and reviewing.

Don't own Chuck or _The Bourne Identity_.

* * *

ACT II

CHAPTER FIVE

Drone and Dive

* * *

Carina was unsure what to make of it, what to make of it at first, anyway.

Chuck had been focused and silent from the time he had agreed to take on the burden of the Intersect again, and had heard about the termination order. He had not fallen apart, hardly winced, barely blinked. He was resolute. Carina knew he was terrified for Sarah, wholly desperate to be on the way to San Diego. But he was holding himself together. Sarah had told Carina once that Chuck was a hero, _her_ hero, the only true hero she had ever known.

Carina now had a palpable sense of what Sarah was talking about. The bumbling, gushing nerd of Carina's first acquaintance had grown. No doubt Sarah had a lot to do with that. But however it had happened, over the past five years, Chuck had become his own master: by winning Sarah, Chuck had won himself.

ooOoo

Carina and Chuck had arrived at the DARPA facility and promptly been taken down an elevator, to what must have been a sub-sub-basement beneath the old, three-story brownstone. The top floors had been converted to a set of office suites. According to the small bronze plaque by the door, offices for criminal lawyers, tax lawyers, and accountants.

 _A house for the truly evil_ , Carina snarked to herself.

She noticed the plethora of cameras around the building: outside, inside and even in the elevator. Concealed all, but noticeable to a person who knew what to look for. The guards at the front desk were no joke. Elite soldiers in plain clothes. Carina had known enough men of that sort to be familiar with how they...moved. One of the soldiers rode down on the elevator with them. When the elevator got to the bottom floor, it stopped and a voice over the intercom told them to hold still for a scan.

A few minutes later, the doors opened. As she stepped out, she could see that there was an extra set of doors for the elevator, that the elevator's own doors were behind heavy steel doors. Getting off that elevator would not be easy unless you were invited.

Carina had expected something smaller, but the hallway they entered ran on for a distance, far beyond the footprint of the brownstone above. A woman walked out of an office and walked toward them, a business smile on her open face.

"Charles Bartowski? Carina Miller?" Each nodded and she shook their hands energetically but briefly. "I am Dr. Smith," one of Chuck's brows arched and she laughed, "no, really, that's my name. Please come with me." Chuck glanced at Carina and she could that he was still controlling his desperation, but that the control was becoming harder for him. Energy was radiating off him in waves, even as he tried to be pleasant.

Carina was expecting a full sci-fi movie experience, but the room they were led to was a plain, white room. There was one small desk, and on it rested a laptop. Dr. Smith stopped them at the door. "Mr. Bartowski, please push 'Enter' on the laptop when you are ready. You will not need to watch the laptop's screen: the entire room is a screen. I believe you have done this sort of thing before, so I don't need to tell you anything more, take any more time."

Chuck nodded and stepped immediately into the room. Dr. Smith retreated from the doorway and, after Carina did too, Dr. Smith shut the door.

There was a panel next to the door with a screen that read: "Ready". A moment later, the screen read: "In Progress". And another moment later, it read: "End."

Dr. Smith looked at the door, expectantly. It opened, and Chuck came out, eyebrows up, blinking beneath them. But other than that, he looked as he had when he had gone in. Carina had expected smoke or heavy-metal music, something portentous. Not just blinking Chuck. But that was all there was.

"Are you okay, Mr. Bartowski?" Chuck closed his eyes and nodded. "No dizziness, disorientation?" Smith stared into his eyes.

"No," Chuck answered, "that was the least...invasive...I've ever found that."

The hint of a proud smile showed on Smith's face, animating her eyes and undoing her curt manner. Carina noticed for the first time that Smith had freckles. ;

"Well," Smith commented, "we've worked to improve the Intersect, to make downloading it more seamless and to make its functioning more integrated with the brain. Your…'flashes' should seem less like visions, less like visitations, and more like memories.

"On the whole, the Intersect should seem less... _alien_ , less, well, like you are _possessed_ ," Smith hummed a few bars of _The_ _Exorcist's_ theme, smiled at Chuck's tight smile in response to her humming, then stopped, self-conscious, and went on, "and it should seem more like you are clear-headed and quick, especially on spy-ish tasks. Still, there'll be the ineliminable strangeness of 'remembering' things you never learned..."

Carina saw pain register deep in Chuck's eyes, and heard him mutter under his breath. "I can remember more than I know, and she can't remember what she knows…The Intersect gives and the Intersect takes away...Damn the Intersect."

Smith hadn't heard what Chuck said, but she knew he spoke. She paused for a moment and he shrugged apologetically. "Just talking to myself." Her brows contracted but Chuck waved his hands. "But I did that long before the Intersect."

"Please tell your sister, Dr. Ellie Woodcomb, how much I admire her work on the Intersect. Her notes, her research, and suggestions, have guided most of what I have done.

"I'd like to meet her one day, talk to her, if they ever let me out into the sunshine again. I'd like to think she and I would be friends." It was Smith's turn to shrug. "It's...uh...lonely down here. We spend a lot of time below ground. To be honest, it feels like I'm in prison...half the time. I guess that's the cost of truly being on the cutting edge of this sort of research. You don't belong to yourself."

Chuck looked like he was about to speak, but then decided against it.

"A couple of things you should know, Mr. Bartowski." Smith sped up her delivery; she could tell Chuck was past ready to go.

"This version of the Intersect will take an hour or so to start to function. It has to...make itself at home in your brain. Its better integration means it is not quite as plug-and-play as earlier versions. Also, what you flash on, what the Intersect 'knows', you will come to know. You shouldn't have to flash to recall information a second time; it should just be there-especially for you, since your brain seems...especially hospitable to the Intersect."

Chuck nodded once and turned. Carina could see the urgency in the set of his shoulders. The clock was ticking. She thanked Dr. Smith and hurried back to the elevator.

The same soldier rode up with them. Carina took a moment to look at him more closely. Handsome. Rugged. She wished she had more time. She felt his gaze slowly sweep along her when he thought she was unaware. Oh, well, maybe she could find him again after all this ended.

She noticed Chuck's hand. He was tapping his middle finger and thumb together, unaware that he was doing so. Her heart went out to him. She simultaneously felt a spike of envy for Sarah. If something like this had happened to Carina, there was no one out there like Chuck to care about it, to care about her. No one who would risk everything for her, for the sheer love of her.

She tried to push the feeling away. She looked again at the soldier. He was still handsome, still rugged. But she saw him in her mind's eye as the nearest in a long line of handsome men, stretching back farther than she liked to admit, even to herself.

She was ruefully willing to bet that few of them remembered her as a woman, a person, but that many remembered her as...a gifted sexual athlete. _Damn them_.

But it really wasn't just their fault, even if they were partly to blame. One side of her mouth turned down, a half frown.

She complained occasionally about men objectifying her. But the truth, the real truth of hard record, was that she often assisted in the objectification: she wanted them to _touch_ her without being able to touch _her_ and so she dropped her subjectivity along with her underwear, inviting them to know her body but effectively forbidding them to know her. Sex was nothing more than (nothing _less_ than, but nothing _more_ than) the coincident, cooperative pursuit of pleasure; it involved no compelling mutuality. Sometimes, she wondered what that compelling mutuality might be like...She shook her head. They were out of the brownstone, out in the sunlight again.

 _This_ was the problem with visiting Chuck and Sarah, and it was one reason why she had only phoned since the wedding. Seeing them together, or now, seeing them apart like _this_ , made her think things, feel things, she did not want to think or feel, did not know how to think or feel.

The way she lived had worked for her for years. It still worked. The coincident, cooperative pursuit of pleasure had been successful, very successful. But she did now surely know one thing: the pursuit of pleasure was not identical to the pursuit of happiness. Pleasure and unhappiness could, and did, coexist. Often. Pleasure could distract from unhappiness, but it could not eject it. Another truth of hard record.

ooOoo

Sarah left the carrel and walked in the direction of the man she had seen, the man she believed was watching her. He was standing, looking at a book on the far end of an aisle. He hadn't gone far.

Saran noted that he was _looking at the book_ -not reading it. Reading had a different posture. He seemed less aware of the book than of anything else around him. _He's good at this,_ Sarah thought, _but not nearly as good as I am._ _Strange to be so confident of skills that only show up as I need them..._

Sarah strolled down the aisle toward him, gauging his reaction to her approach. He quelled a bit, cast his glance sideways. Sarah knew she had him. He would run or he would talk. If he ran, he would still talk, just a little later, and while out of breath.

Surprisingly, he held his place, continuing to pretend to read-to pretend poorly.

 _Remember, the best way to pretend to do most things is to actually do them, even while the goal of your action is something else. If you are pretending to be a window washer, so that you can case a window display, case the display while actually washing the window. If you are pretending to read, read, but without concern to understand what you are reading. You will be trying to understand something else._

More instructions.

Where had she learned these things? Why were they so deeply ingrained?

They were. They came to her mind easily, at the opportune moment. Clearly, she did not just know these things, she had lived them. They were part of the fabric of who she was. Of who she _is_? She had been a spy, a highly trained one, a good one, a very good one.

 _Tenses._ _So confusing. Can a woman with no past talk meaningfully in the present tense, the future tense? Or is she lost to time, to tense?_

As she passed the man, she kept her attention on him but not her eyes. She heard him exhale; he thought she was going to pass him by. She whirled and pulled the pistol from her purse in one smooth motion. It was pressed sharply into his side before he finished exhaling.

"Don't move. Don't speak. Or I will kill you right here, right now. You know I _can_ do it. You know I _will_ do it. You know I will escape _after_ I do it." Her whisper was low and fierce. It frightened her: she believed the words from her own mouth. So did the man. She saw him gulp.

No one was in the aisle. Sarah hissed a question. "Who do I work for?" The man looked at her out of the corner of his eyes. Lost. He'd expected a different version of that question, a version about himself, not about her.

Bewildered: "You are a Special Agent, CIA."

 _A man. An offer. Blackmail. A girl. No choice. Too young, too helpless...too hopeless to refuse. A farm. No, no._ The _Farm._

A headache. Splitting.

"And why are you following me?"

 _If you opponent knows things you do not, that is the clandestine equivalent of the topographical high ground. Never give up the high ground. Always know more than your opponent. Always share less. Share nothing, if possible. There is no you to know. Share_ nothing _._

The man was still confused by her questions. "Because my...superiors are worried that you are a threat to them."

"And how would I be a threat to them?"

"They are worried that you know something, might remember something, that could...compromise them."

Sarah bitterly wanted to laugh. She remembered nothing. Some threat she was. "Where am I stationed?"

The man shrugged. She jabbed him harder with the pistol. "I don't know...not for sure. I heard that you had been in Burbank. Anyway, I was told to make sure that you didn't head back there."

 _Burbank._

" _I have a home here, a good one."_

" _Snoresville."_

Harsh throbs behind her eyes. She clamped her teeth down, ignored the pain.

The man was a drone. Nothing more. He was there to maintain contact, but not to make decisions, not to take action. Someone else was running the show. She needed to know who. "Who're your superiors?"

The man shrugged again. Sarah believed the shrug. "How do you make contact?" The man started to reach for his back pocket. Sarah brought her foot down hard on top of his. He gave a muffled groan and stopped his reach. Daring him to move again or even to change expression, Sarah held his gaze as she put her hand into his pocket. A phone. She looked a question at him.

"I get texts, directions, everything from the phone."

She looked at it. "Is it locked?" The man shook his head. She punched the button and the phone's screen lit. She could see a text: _Keep the target in sight. Report any contact she makes._

Almost without taking her eyes off the phone, Sarah delivered a surgical blow, a blow behind the man's ear with her pistol's handle. He collapsed to the floor. She checked him. He'd be ok, after some rest and some aspirin.

Sarah felt a glimmer of hope. She had a tangible lead, a lead on herself.

No one had yet noticed her or the man. She quickly rifled through his pockets, taking his money clip and his car keys. No ID.

She quickly walked into the parking lot. She hit the 'unlock' button in the fob and saw the lights flash on a gray Honda Accord. She got in and left the lot. After driving for about ten minutes, she pulled into a crowded discount department store lot. She parked the car and studied the man's phone.

The string of text messages that ended with the one she had first seen began with a photograph of her motel room door. He had known she was there, had been outside her door. Maybe it had been his footsteps she had heard, not Carina's. Maybe she'd been more hazy, more sleepy, more confused than she'd realized, at least at first.

Maybe Carina hadn't been sneaking to her door. After all, Carina had knocked. She seemed to know Sarah. And...Sarah knew Carina. The certainty gripped her. Sarah had tried to kill someone she _knew_ , someone who took them to be...friends.

She tried to garrote her friend. She stopped, but, God, what sort of monster was she? She could offer excuses, but...

 _Killer. Assassin. Enforcer._

She forced herself to calm down. She wrote down the phone number of the phone, and the number the man had been texting. She went through the phone. Nothing else was there. No other numbers called, nothing.

She got out of the car and walked into the store, dropping the phone in the trash can near the door. She quickly bought some new clothes: a brown suede jacket, a blue blouse with little buttons that she found oddly irresistible, a white blouse, and two pairs of blue jeans, one blue, one black. She added underwear, socks and a pair of low boots. She noticed a pair of mirrored aviator sunglasses and put them in her basket.

She paid for the items and went to the car. Climbing into the backseat and making sure no one could see her, she rapidly put on on the jeans, the blue blouse, the socks, and boots. She slipped on the sunglasses.

She was headed to San Ysidro. From there, she knew, she was likely headed to Burbank.

She looked at herself in the rearview mirror, her mirrored eyes reflecting the rearview reflection of her. Fitting. She was trapped in a hall of mirrors. All reflections, flitting images, and no idea who was casting the reflections

ooOoo

She had expected to drive around San Ysidro aimlessly for a while since she both knew and did not know what she was searching for, or, better, she would only know it when she found it.

It turned out she didn't need to drive for long. As she came into the depressed neighborhood, she saw a dive bar and it meant something to her. _The Gull._ She was virtually certain she had been there before, and that she had once been very frightened there, young there. Parking the car on the street, she took a moment to focus.

She put her pistol in the jacket pocket. She got out of the car and quickly crossed the street. Without hesitation, she pushed open the door and plunged into the darkness of the bar.

She took off her sunglasses and scanned the bar. It was filthy, crowded with unmatched furniture, but nearly empty of people.

An old man was staring into his foamy beer, a pitiable Narcissus perched above a nonreflecting pool. There was a bartender wiping down the other end of the bar, but he seemed to be doing nothing but redistributing the oily film that covered its surface.

He looked up at her, at her body. He was probably in his early sixties. He made no attempt to hide his lechery. Sarah walked to the bar quickly, giving the man's gaze no time to linger on her, dally.

When the man's gaze finally reached her face, he started slightly. _Recognition_. "Shit," he said in a colorless tone. The lechery was gone, replaced by caution, fear.

"I need your help," Sarah spoke softly, but making sure that menace was in her gaze, "I need you to get me some information. Cooperate, and I will pay you. Don't cooperate, and you will...pay me."

The man nodded choppily. Sarah picked up a napkin from the bar and held out her hand. The man handed her a pen from his shirt pocket.

 _Pocket. Pen. Pocket Protector. Herder._ She leaned hard against the bar, the pain in her head unbalancing her.

 _Herder?_ What does that mean?

The man was studying her, noting her reaction, puzzled. She shook off the memory, suppressed the pain, and wrote the names _Sarah Walker_ , _Rebecca Franco,_ _Carina Miller,_ and wrote the phone number the man had been texting.

She pushed the napkin toward the bartender. Why was she so sure of all this? But so unsure of almost everything else? God, her head hurt. It hurt.

 _Herder?_

She looked up and down the bar, expecting to see a call bell on it.

 _Real ballerinas are tall_.

Another surge of pain. Were these code phrases from her past...missions? Why did remembering them hurt so much? The pain was intense, increasing, worse than ever before...

The man gave her a curious look but then glanced at the napkin. He pointed to the first name, eyeing her strangely as he did. "Why do you want me to find information on you?"

"You _know_ me? You know me?" She felt terrified and expectant all at once, even in the midst of pain that threatened to blind her. Her instincts had been right, better than right.

He nodded. "Sure, I mean I know you use various aliases, and yeah, I know you, although it's been years since I saw you, _Jenny_."

 _Jenny_.

 _Sarah_.

 _Rebecca_.

 _Who_ am _I?_

 _How can there be so many of me, and none of me, all at once?..._

Sarah's head was lodged in a vise, crushed between moving metal jaws. She heard a gasp of pain, her own, and then she slumped into darkness.

* * *

 **A/N2** This brings Act II to an end. Chapter 6 "Kill or Kiss" begins Act III.


	7. Chapter 6: Kill or Kiss

**A/N1** Act III begins. I'm trying to crowd us all into Sarah's aching head. But being in there means sharing her pain and confusion, her deep existential disquiet.

Thanks very much for reading and reviewing. Remember, the reading is free but the suggested donation is a review.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

ACT III

CHAPTER SIX

Kill or Kiss

* * *

Near San Diego, Carina's phone rang. Since she was driving, and at high speed, she gestured for Chuck to answer it.

The screen read: _Beckman_. Carina nodded. Chuck hit the speaker button.

"Carina?" Carina nodded at Chuck; Chuck spoke. "Here, General, _Chuck_. Both of us. Closing in on San Diego.

"Good. I have decided to come to Burbank. I am on my way to the airport now, in fact. I have info for you that you need. The analysts checking the law enforcement files on Sarah's father and Graham's personal file on Sarah found what you suggested might be there, Chuck." Beckman sounded pleased, hopeful. "When Sarah was in high school in San Diego, her father frequently used a criminal hacker, Rodriguez Santos, for help with cons, con jobs.

"The man owned, and he _still_ owns, a bar in San Ysidro, _The Gull._ A brilliant man, evidently, but he hides beneath the facade of a slow-witted, unambitious barkeeper. He's been under suspicion for this and that over years, but he's mostly managed to avoid prosecution. Typically, he supplies the information; others do the dirty work. Never turns his white collar blue, so to speak. He gets a payment, a kickback, a percentage.

"But here's the most promising part." Beckman's voice became conspiratorial. "There are two times Sarah used him for information in her years as an agent. The last was a while ago, before Burbank, but still...It seems likely she had known him through her father. Met him that way. There's no other explanation for her knowledge in the file. What do you think?"

Carina looked at Chuck and he squinted his eyes, thinking aloud. "Right. Right. It's the sort of thing I was hoping for. From the little we know, Sarah's steering almost entirely by instinct, gut feelings. But I know my wife," he smiled, worry and affection blending in the expression. "I know the spy she was... _is_ ," he slowed, frowned, finished almost in a whisper. But then he went on, his voice steadily gaining conviction.

"Even confused, Sarah will be systematic, and she will go on the initiative, the offensive. She is not one to fight a defensive battle unless she has to. She will take on her lack of memory, her ignorance of herself, head-on. She has her name, a name anyway; Carina gave it to her.

"She'll find someone who she thinks will be able to use it to give her information about herself without exposing her-or exposing her more than necessary. Yeah, General," Carina could tell Chuck was trying to check his growing excitement, "I think this could be it. We'll go straight there now, if you give us the address."

Beckman did. She closed with a cautionary tone. "Chuck, you know that I am out on a limb here, and there are Intersect Committee members filing the teeth of their saws. We need to find your wife and stabilize the situation in the next...44 hours. Fewer now."

Carina swallowed hard and she saw the excitement that had risen in Chuck's face as he talked drain away.

He looked at Carina but answered Beckman, quietly. "I know. We know."

ooOoo

They were on the block of _The Gull_. Carina turned to Chuck. The car was moving but Chuck has his hand around the door handle.

"I've got to get in there, Carina. Let me out, please."

His voice was low, quiet, but supercharged. She knew he had a tranq gun under his jacket. Still…He shouldn't go in without backup.

"Don't, Chuck. Don't. Give me two minutes to park the car…" The car in front of them slowed and Chuck was out the door, managing to get his feet going fast enough not to stumble as the car pulled away from him. In fact, he hit the ground smoothly. "Dammit, Chuck!" Carina cast around looking for any place to park the car, legal or not. In her rearview mirror, she saw Chuck dart between cars, like a dancer, spinning, and sprinting toward the entrance of _The Gull_.

Carina saw a space and shot toward it, entering the spot so quickly that she had to slide to a stop, her front bumper gently tapping the rear bumper of the car in the next space. She had her gun shoulder-holstered under her jacket. She opened the door and scanned the street. The door of _The Gull_ was closing, presumably behind Chuck.

"This is why spies don't fall in love," Carina griped under her breath as she ran between cars and across the street, one hand slipping under her jacket as the other reached out for the handle of the bar door.

ooOoo

"Sarah!"

Chuck saw her slumped on the floor. A man was standing over her, his head down, a dirty rag hanging on his shoulder. He was reaching for her. Chuck had the tranq pistol out immediately and fired; it happened so fast he did not know he had done it. The Intersect. The dart lodged in the man's neck and he fell across Sarah's body.

There was an old man at the bar, but he was staring fixedly into his beer, unmoved by the spectacle unfolding around him. For a moment, Chuck thought he might be a cardboard figure, but then he picked up his beer and sipped it.

Chuck reached Sarah and the man. The Intersect clicked over when he moved the man and could see his face clearly. _Rodriguez Santos._ Chuck did not take the time to think about the fact, but it registered: he'd flashed twice without _flashing_. There'd been no physical disturbance, none, before, during, or after the flash. As Dr. Smith promised, it was like he had simply remembered Santos. Remembered how to make that shot with the tranq gun.

He pushed the man away so as to free Sarah. He reached down to pick her up. She was still unconscious, but he could see her breathing, Carina came through the door just then, gun out, gripped in both hands. She pointed it at the man staring into his beer. He never looked up. Chuck saw Carina's eyes flick to Sarah: "Is she ok?"

Chuck grunted as he picked her up, working her into a fireman's carry, and then he grabbed her bag from the floor. "She's alive. She's not been shot or injured, at least not recently." He had seen the healing rope burns on her wrists and his stomach was twisting. Carina holstered her gun, finally judging the man at the bar no threat, except perhaps to his beer. "I'll get the car." She was gone out the door.

Chuck got Sarah curbside at the moment Carina pulled up. He gently placed her in the back seat. Carina handed him a pair of cuffs. He looked at her like she was crazy. She pointed at the purple-yellow line of bruising around her neck. Chuck held up Sarah's arm, baring her wrist, showing the burns.

Hurt registered in Carina's eyes-and fear, briefly. "I see Chuck, but she tried to kill me. I would never say this if she were conscious, but she is more than a match for me, and I've always known it. That's why I've always had so much...bravado...around her. Never wanted my knowledge to show. I don't know what the Intersect has done to you, but without it, I know she is more than a match for you too."

Chuck hesitated a beat, then took the cuffs. He locked them as loosely as he could while still sure Sarah could not free her hands. "I hate it, but you're right: she can kick my ass. Maybe not with the Intersect, but even with it, my money's still on her."

He shut the back door and jumped into the passenger seat, dropping Sarah's bag on the floor. As Carina pulled away from the curb, he turned in the seat to brush Sarah's hair tenderly out of her face. "Hey, baby. We found you. We found you." Sarah was still unconscious. But Chuck's relief filled the car, extended beyond it.

ooOoo

Chuck demanded they stop a couple of times so that he could check on Sarah. Carina kept trying to keep him in the front with her. She finally had to just say it: "Sarah tried to kill me. She stopped in time not to do it, but I don't know if that was skill or luck, Chuck. It's not safe for you to be back there. At the very least, give her some distance, some air, so that if she does wake up, she may not go into full panic."

Chuck looked at her, and Carina finished: "We have no idea if she will know you, Chuck."

Carina hated herself for saying it, but it had to be said. The lovesick fool would get himself hurt or killed. And if Sarah came back to herself, and found out that she had...Well, better not to let that even be a possibility. Sarah would understand the need for caution, even where she was concerned, especially where she was concerned.

ooOoo

Sarah regained consciousness slowly, one mincing step at a time, daintily even. At first, she was languid in a dreamy, soft-focus world, and then that world gradually became more fully realized, hard-edged...

She was...in the backseat of a car, supine, her wrists cuffed together in front of her.

The cuffs dug a little into the burns on her wrists, but she made herself use the pain to lever herself into full consciousness. A woman and a man were in the front seat. The woman's voice was sounded vaguely...familiar.

Sarah began to make words out of the sounds. "...We have no idea if she will know you, Chuck."

 _Chuck_.

The name detonated her heart. A bomb, it destroyed her. She disintegrated, scattered. She was shrapnelled by pain.

Her baseline reaction: _fear_. Overwhelming. She was afraid of that name, afraid of the bearer of that name, afraid of the man who bore that identity. Not afraid in the past. Afraid, _now_.

He was a threat. He was in the front seat. He was the threat. She had to get away from him.

She looked at him through her lashes, her eyes barely open. His brown eyes, his curly hair-the sight of him like taking a roundhouse to the gut. All the instincts that had kept her alive the last days rebelled against him fiercely. He was their enemy, so her enemy. The assassin in her, the spy in her, rejected him, categorically.

 _I, assassin, reject you...Chuck._

If she couldn't escape from him, then she needed to turn the tables, make him her prisoner, instead of her his.

Sarah realized that the woman driving was Carina Miller. She _was_ alive, after all. Sarah had not killed her. Some part of her was very glad of that-but Sarah had no discernible voice in Sarah's deafening inner cacophony.

Carina had taken off her jacket as she drove. Sarah could see the straps of her shoulder holster. Sarah braced herself, lunged up out of the rear seat. She circled her arms around Carina's head and seized her pistol. She got her arms up and off Carina before Carina could get a hand off the wheel. In a blink, Sarah was holding Carina's pistol, aiming it at the back of Carina's head.

"Pull over! Now!"

Carina peeked at Sarah in the rearview mirror. She frowned, shaking her head. "Sarah, it's me, Carina. We are _friends_. We've been friends for years. Please put down the gun."

"Why am I your prisoner? Pull to the side of the road, now. I won't ask again." Her voice was iced-over, artic. Carina winced slightly and she pulled over. Outside, cars whipped by, making their car rock slightly.

Sarah had kept Chuck in view as she pointed the pistol at Carina. His look of surprise and sorrow…

"Sarah…" Her name, his voice. Explosions inside her. _Blitzkrieg. Ruination._

Her voice in her head: "Don't listen to him. Don't listen to him." But her name in his voice. How could anything sound so terrifying and so wonderful? Her head began to hurt again, blackness flickered at the edges of her vision.

"Sarah," he spoke her name again, softly. "We put cuffs on you because you have lost your memory, because you...attacked Carina. We are taking you to get help."

Chuck had his hands up. Sarah noticed the wedding ring on his hand. _Mr. Anderson?_ The ring looked familiar...Why did it make her head hurt so bad? Why was her heart hurting too?

She turned her attention toward him, locking the hurt away. She realized then that she had for many years ( _how many? forever?_ ) been the warden of her own pain. She did it the first night at the hotel. She was doing it now. It was a practice, practiced.

 _Lock the pain away._ _Lock everything away._

 _Feelings mean nothing. Psychological flotsam and jetsam. Letting yourself feel them is a mistake. Attending to them is a worse mistake. Feelings mean nothing. Do not have them. If you do, ignore them. The mission. There is only the mission. Anything else...and you are dead! The mission. There is only the mission. Kill._

 _Killer._

"Key!" She pointed the gun at Chuck. The look on his face registered in her chest. A feeling, so deep, so strong, a torrent…

"Key!" she shouted it at him like a condemnation. He took the key from his pocket and handed it to her. She realized then that she could not effectively keep the gun on them and unlock the cuffs. She held the key out to Chuck. "You do it. Get me out of these cuffs."

He took the key and put his hand gently-so gently- _Why so gentle?_ -around her arm, careful of her sore wrist-so careful- _Why so careful?_ -and unlocked the cuffs. She snuck a look at his hair, the brown curls short, but still there. She could smell him. He had the scent of...home.

 _Home?_

 _Home._

She was losing her mind. She'd never had a home. Not really. None. A suitcase.

 _A suitcase. A pocket inside. Pocket protector. Herder. Baggage Handler. A pocket inside. A photograph. Safety._

The black flames at the edges of her vision flickered more violently. Her was head was heavy. She could hardly keep it up. She had a headache all the way to her feet. She pointed the gun back at Carina. The cuffs were now attached only to her gun hand, dangling. "Get out!"

Carina looked alarmed-and hurt. "Sarah, _girl_ , you know me. We know each other. Rio? London? Rome? Sarah?"

All of that felt vaguely like it meant something to Sarah. But what? Carina might be using her history against her. Maybe she had been to those places? But with Carina? Sarah took herself to have operated mostly by herself. That's what felt...natural. Didn't it?

 _Choose to be alone. Then the only person who can betray you is you. Trust is weakness. Doubt is strength. Do not trust anyone. Never allow anyone to trust you. Trust creates trust. It is a trap. Doubt keeps you alive. Trust gets you dead. There is only the mission._

"I said _to get out_." The pain in Sarah's head would not go away. It got worse as she became more and more aware of Chuck. She couldn't keep her eyes off him, but each time her gaze touched him it intensified her pain. She could still smell him. It seemed his scent suffused her.

Carina looked at Chuck. He nodded. She opened the door and got out of the car. Sarah waved the pistol horizontally, telling Chuck to get into the driver's seat. It took him a moment. Sarah realized how tall he was. So tall. Even in her pain, something in her abdomen stretched itself out, curled itself into a comfortable ball, and purred. But the purring then intensified the pain too.

Her head was killing her. It demanded her full attention. She made herself ignore everything but the pain, and the return of the lecturing, hectoring voice in her head.

 _A hostage is always an encumbrance. Never take one unless absolutely necessary. Rid yourself of the encumbrance as soon as possible. The longer a hostage is with you, the more he or she learns about you. Remember that. If they learn too much...By definition, our definition anyway, hostages are expendable._

Sarah knew she should make Chuck get out of the car too. If she kept him, she'd end up having to kill him.

 _Kill him_.

 _Or kiss him_.

 _What?_

She ordered him to drive.

ooOoo

Carina watched the car re-enter traffic and head away.

"Shit. _Twice_."

She put out a thumb. She wasn't worried. She'd get a ride; getting picked up was never a challenge for Carina. The next time she saw Sarah, memory or not, she was going to even the score. Somehow. Carina just hoped she would see her again.

She looked at her watch. 42 hours, more or less.

"Good luck, Chuckles. You are going to need it."

* * *

 **A/N2** Carina as a prophet? More next time in Chapter 7 "Time and Thought Are Mutually Entangled". See you then.


	8. Chapter 7: Time and Thought

**A/N1** Fanfiction Author's Warning: Squirm-worthy moments ahead, or so at least they seemed as I wrote them.

A reader mentioned wanting Chuck's POV. I wondered if anyone noticed that I had not written in his POV since a brief section of Chapter 1. But his POV did reappear in the last chapter and it will be with us a lot from here on. There is a method to my madness…

Thanks for the kind reviews. I know this isn't an easy story.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

ACT III

CHAPTER SEVEN

Time and Thought are Mutually Entangled

* * *

Chuck stomped on the accelerator; the car leaped into traffic. It was as if the other cars were moving in slow motion. He could feel their direction, speed, even make and model. It was all there for him, like intuition, but it was not intuition. _The Intersect_. He had a sudden sense of how a racetrack must look to elite drivers. Still, he kept the car under the speed limit. His mind was racing.

What he had seen in Sarah's face was what he had seen glimpses of early in her time in Burbank, early in her time around him. That maddening attraction/repulsion thing that had led to the draw-and-push of their early years together.

She reacted to him immediately. As she had done, he knew, when they first met. But back then, she had known who she was, or thought she did, and she'd been better able to cope with the reaction than he thought she was now.

He was on thin ice. At any moment, he could plunge beneath, into freezing waters ruled by the Ice Queen. He did not think Sarah could...would...kill him; he obviously was not hoping to find out. He recalled a conversation with Ellie, back after he and Sarah had gotten married and he was momentarily frustrated by Sarah's still-sometimes-present reticence about sharing how she felt.

" _Chuck, remember something. It's taken your wife five years comfortably to begin to connect with her own feelings, to acknowledge them, attend to them, share them, to be guided by them. Her training and the environment she lived in for so long forced her to disconnect from her feelings, deny them._

" _She's made so much progress; she and I have talked about it. She knows she still has work to do, but she has come a long way. You are so close to her it's hard for you to keep the progress in view. Just remember, if you press her, her instinct is to shut down or delay even longer. You've been patient with her all this time; you just have to keep being patient._

 _Maybe she'll never lead_ with _her heart in quite the way you do. But she is lead_ by _her heart these days. Remember back when you told me that you have to keep winning her again and again? Well, you've won her—but you need to stay patient. Slow. Take things slow. Super slow."_

And here he was again. _Superslowman_.

But the thought caused no rancor, no bitterness. He had vowed to be there for her, always. He would be now. He decided to follow her lead, to the extent that he could. For now, he would do as she told him. Maybe he could win her, reach her heart. If he lived long enough.

ooOoo

Sarah had forced Chuck to throw his phone and Carina's out the window. Now, Sarah was trying to cope with the pain in her head.

Every time she looked at Chuck and let her gaze linger, the pain became worse, worse the longer her gaze lingered. She was forced into quick glances, sidelong checks. Her head hurt. She was afraid of the man in the front seat. Yet another part of her, despite the pain and the fear, kept whispering to her that she was in the _backseat_ and that he could pull over and join her.

How could one person be so jumbled? She wanted to scream. Who had taken her life from her? What had been done to her?

She had been so focused on who she was and on her AWOL past that she hadn't really given how it happened much thought. She'd been beaten. Hit her head. That had been her sole thought. But was that what happened?

What did the man driving the car know about her? She hadn't been able to get help from the man at _The Gull._ But this guy-maybe she could get him to help her. He did not look like a threat, although her reaction to him made her think he was, made him feel like one when she didn't feel drawn to him.

She leaned forward, speaking through a tightening throat and a knotting stomach as she put the barrel of the gun against the back of Chuck's head.

"Who _are_ you?"

"Chuck."

She caught his scent again, felt woozy; pain spiked in her head. She gritted her teeth.

"I know that already. The woman, Carina, said your name. What is your full name?"

ooOoo

Chuck felt his pulse rocket. Had she heard the name 'Bartowski'? Probably not. She took herself to be Sarah _Walker_. But there was that weird _I don't know you but it hurts me to look at you_ thing she was going through. The fact that his presence seemed itself to cause her pain. What would that name do?

His name. Her name. Their name.

Even as he drove, he absently touched his thumb to his wedding ring, steering with just the fingers of that hand. He looked up into the rearview mirror. She saw the small gesture. She poked the barrel hard into the back of his head, grimacing as she did so. "Is your last name 'Anderson'?"

Chuck was lost for a split second. The ring. She was remembering... _Bryce_. Not Chuck. _Not me_. She knew 'Anderson', not 'Bartowski'. Chuck's eyes stung, filled with tears. Sarah noticed. Her grimace transfigured into a puzzled frown. "You aren't Anderson, are you? But you know that name, don't you? It means something to you, like it does to me…"

Chuck blinked rapidly, trying to clear his vision, hide the hurt. He needed to be able to handle this, make tactical decisions about what to reveal and when. But, God, lying to Sarah! Without meaning to, he muttered under his breath: "No secrets, no lies." Her eyes got big, then she took control of her expression. She let the line pass.

"No, Sarah, I am not Chuck _Anderson_. The name 'Anderson' does mean something to me. It was a cover you used in the past-quite a few years ago now, when you were partners with Bryce Larkin."

For a moment, Sarah's face was blank-not because she was suppressing an expression but because, Chuck could tell, she was genuinely expressionless. But then she blushed. He saw a light in her eyes. She turned from him slightly, so that he could not see her eyes in the mirror.

Chuck felt his heart liquify, stream down along his the insides of his ribs, and pool in his feet.

Sarah remembered Bryce Larkin, her old boyfriend, long dead, but not her husband, sitting in front of her, now her hostage, her gun barrel against his skull.

ooOoo

Sarah spoke, not to him, not even to herself. She just spoke. Her voice the voice of her memory. "We were partners. We _pretended_ to be married. He...was Mr. Anderson; I was Mrs. Anderson. We were someplace in South America, maybe...I sort of remember him, see him. We were more than...partners…" Her mind filled with memories, but out of focus, emotionally distant.

Guarded...blue...eyes.

She came to herself. Looked back into the mirror. Chuck now looked away. But she saw him fighting with himself. His hands were trembling on the wheel. She drew the gun away from his head a little, an automatic response to a welling up of sympathy for him and... _what_? Something else...for herself, about herself. Mild regret, complex dissatisfaction. "We were more than partners...but less than a couple. I don't remember it any of it clearly. But I _remember_ …" She spoke aloud but not tp Chuck, rather to the empty air.

She was drifting away again, could feel it, not caught up in the memory, but in the _event_ of remembering itself. It was the first time it happened like this since she woke up on the dock.

"Cabo. We tried to convince ourselves we could have something...But by the time we left, we both knew, even though we didn't say anything to each other. Maybe we thought we could try again, would try again, that...another place, another time it might work…"

 _But I knew. There had been too many secrets, too many lies, too much compromise, not enough promise...We had nothing to build on except...professional competence, nagging emptiness…I remember that..._

She stopped herself. The angle of Chuck's shoulders testified to his effort to control himself. What she had just said had affected him as much as her. Differently, but just as much.

 _Why_? Did he know Bryce?

She started to let go of the memory, but then she remembered the claim check in her pocket. The rings. What was Bryce's name when they were the Andersons? Maybe it was just...Bryce. It didn't start with 'C'. It didn't.

Those rings she pawned, the bare spot on her finger, the pawn shop, the tears.

Those rings meant something to her that the Anderson's rings never began to mean, that the Anderson's never meant. Those rings were _real_. She was...had been, anyway... _married_. Really married. She knew it but could not believe it.

' _C' is for heart and heart is for…."_

" _Chuck_ ," she blurted out, "is that your real name? Who names their kid 'Chuck' these days, anyway?" She could hear herself, her tone unreadable. She waited for an answer.

ooOoo

Chuck was unsure what to say. Why did it matter? He did not want to lie. She was thinking about Bryce. About the Andersons. Those were the times she remembered.

"Yeah, my name really is Chuck."

"And you are a...spy?"

It was the day for all of Chuck's buttons to get pressed, no, more, _hammered_. "Yes...and no. More or...less. My wife..." Chuck wasn't sure how to go on. His mouth moved but no words formed.

"Your wife? You are married."

Chuck winced, but minimized the movement. "I am…I was... _I lost her_." He finally allowed himself to acknowledge that her rings were gone. He had seen it—but kept it at bay for as long as he could. He slumped slightly in the seat.

"Oh. Sorry."

ooOoo

Sarah seemed at that moment to realize she had fallen into conversation with her...hostage. How had she forgotten?

Because forgetting was what she now did best. She steeled herself. Pushed away from the thought of the rings. Chuck was not her 'C'.

She had no idea who was, or if anyone was anymore. She was, she had been, someone's heart.

How could a spy have been anyone's heart? How could she have been? She leaned forward and put the gun back against Chuck's head. She wasn't sure if she did it to reestablish control or just to catch his scent again.

How could the scent of a man she feared make her feel...centered?

ooOoo

They drove on in silence for a time. Sarah needed to ask Chuck questions. He knew things about her. She was afraid of him, afraid of the answers. Why was she afraid of this man? He did not seem like a threat, despite her feeling that he was. His glances at her were not searching for a weakness to exploit. They were...concerned...but for her, not himself.

Finally, Chuck asked Sarah a question. "Look, I am just driving—where are we going?"

"Burbank. We're headed in the right direction, given the signs."

"Yeah," Chuck swallowed hard, "...we are. But why?"

She gave him a look. "You may as well stop pretending like you don't know anything about me. Obviously, you do. I don't remember you, not exactly anyway. But I heard Carina say that she did not know if I would remember you. So, I'm guessing I could, maybe even _should_ remember you. How did we know each other?"

Chuck offered each word of his answer as if were dangerous. "We were members of the same...team. We worked together. In Burbank. But look, I'm not sure Burbank is the best destination for you right now…

"You are having memory troubles, right?" Chuck asked this quietly. She gave him one sharp nod. An Agent Sarah Walker nod.

"Well, I know something about how that happened to you. It's...well, it's complicated," Chuck glanced at her in the mirror, "it's a looong story. I'm not sure where to begin…" _Or where it ends, if it hasn't already._

He could see fear and curiosity in her eyes: she wanted to know, was afraid to know.

Chuck thought about the long night he had spent on the beach years ago, trying to come to terms with the Intersect, the CIA, Sarah, the NSA, Casey. She had kept vigil over him, protected him while he worked it out. He would do the same for her, no matter what the end turned out to be.

 _I love you, Sarah Bartowski, and I love you, Sarah Walker. I love you, Sarah._

ooOoo

Beckman's phone practically exploded when she turned it on as she left the plane.

Huntaker. Other members of the Intersect Committee.

She looked at her text. Stopped walking. Another first-class passenger ran into her while looking down at his own phone He apologized.

 _The LA DARPA facility was bombed. Heavy casualties, including Dr. Smith. The Intersect Project is finished._

Huntaker. Beckman knew a part of him was actually happy, or at least relieved.

Her phone vibrated, another text from Huntaker, this one brand new.

 _Sarah Bartowski's fingerprints found on the scene at DARPA. DNA evidence. The Committee voted while you were on the plane. Clear majority. Termination order now in effect._

Shit. Sarah was not responsible for DARPA. Beckman rejected the thought. What was going on? Why would someone implicate Sarah? And now the intelligence community was hunting her.

At least no one on the Committee knew yet that Chuck had the pristine Intersect. That was something. That was a big something, actually. An advantage. And although Beckman was not trying temporarily to mute the horror she felt about the bombing-she had handpicked Smith and liked her-she knew that the bombing would delay Huntaker and the others from finding out that Chuck had the Intersect.

Beckman tried to phone Carina. Nothing. She tried Chuck. Nothing. What was going on? Had they found Sarah? She hit the call button on her phone-John Casey-and put it to her ear as she entered the terminal.

ooOoo

Sarah glanced out the window. Remembering the little she had remembered, late pieces of her time with Bryce, had brought back the emotional tone of that time.

Bryce had been a source of warmth—lukewarmth—in the cold, in the mostly weary, stale, flat and unprofitable landscape of her spy life. But he had never changed her, never changed that landscape.

But something had changed her. Someone. Someone who came after Bryce. Someone far, far better. Someone who had helped her to be reborn. Someone who found a Sarah lost to time and brought her back. Someone who energized, freshened, varied and rendered profitable the landscape of her life.

She squeezed her eyes shut for a second, trying to conjure up a face. _Mr. Fantastic_. _Where are you, Mr. Fantastic?_ No face appeared and the effort made her head pound, a nine-pound hammer.

 _An odor...food cooking, then plated, and the...aroma, flavors—chicken, pepperoni._ _Chicken Pepperoni_?

 _I really am_ losing _what is left of my mind._

* * *

 **A/N2** So much confusion and misery in one car (in one brief chapter). More next time in Chapter 8, "Din and Prodigality". Keep the faith.

Continued thanks to WvonB, David Carner and halfachance.


	9. Chapter 8: Din and Prodigality

**A/N1** Forward, let's hope.

Thanks so much for the reviews and PMs. I always love to hear from readers, need to hear from readers.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

ACT III

CHAPTER EIGHT

Din and Prodigality

* * *

Ellie was tapping her foot. Beckman had called her after Casey. Morgan was drumming his fingers on the desk. It wasn't enough that the bad guys, whoever they were, were after Sarah, the damn good guys were after her too. Ellie stopped her foot.

Were there really any good guys in the spy world? She knew there were, but they were few and far between, hard to identify, and getting harder all the time.

Beckman had talked to Carina, who had borrowed a phone from the trucker who gave her a ride. Beckman explained to Ellie that Sarah had compelled Carina from the car, leaving her on the roadside. In spite of all the craziness and the desperation, Ellie smiled to herself. If everyone got through all this, Carina was going to have a hard time living down the fact that a memory-challenged Sarah had twice gotten the best of her.

Ellie chuckled to herself for a second. She had a sudden image of Carina lifting her skirt a little, like Claudette Colbert in _It Happened One Night_ , revealing some leg to get a ride.

So now it was Chuck and Sarah again, Sarah and Chuck, but she had no memories, just a faulty Intersect, and he had memories and the pristine Intersect. How was that going to go? The two of them could never catch a break. Never.

She glared at Morgan. He stopped drumming. She went back to work on the computer, hoping she could figure out what might have happened to Sarah. All the lights of Castle were off except for the one that created the island of light in which she and Morgan were seated. Ellie's foot started tapping again; Morgan's fingers started drumming.

Tap, tap, drum, drum.

ooOoo

Sarah made herself forget Chicken Pepperoni and remember the man driving the car. "Why is Burbank a bad idea? Start the story wherever you want."

Chuck took a moment. "Because the man who did this to you- _the memory thing_ -he is still after you. And because the government has started a countdown to issuing a termination order on you. You've been tagged 'Beyond Salvage'. It is due to go into effect in about a day and a half."

Sarah kept her face expressionless. "So, the CIA wants me...dead?"

"Not just the CIA...a Committee...powerful, secret...that Committee gave the order. But the CIA, the NSA, some bowl of Frosted Alphabits, whoever, will enforce it."

"And...the man who did this to me...you know who he is?" Sarah could feel dread encroaching. She wanted the name and she did not want it.

"Yeah, his name is Nicholas Quinn."

Sarah's body arched in pain, violent, intense, and Chuck called out her name. But then she sank back into her seat, blinking rapidly, her hand to her forehead.

"Sarah, are you ok?"

She gulped and nodded. "Yes, I think so, but let's...not mention that name again anytime soon."

"No problem. Are you sure you are ok?" He looked like he wanted to pull over, but Sarah waved the gun vaguely at him. Then she nodded, the motion tentative, testing. Finally, she nodded again, with more confidence. "How...Why...would that man do this to me?"

Chuck thought. Sarah could see that he was trying to organize his thoughts.

"The how and the why are the same, really. It has to do with a top-secret piece of government intelligence. The piece isn't exactly a physical item-it is a program, a program that allows for the uploading of data and skills into the mind of a person, ideally…" Sarah felt an undercurrent of bitterness, "...into the mind of a _spy_. The technology brought you to Burbank, to me...to our Team. The...uh...program ended up in my head…"

"So you got it by...accident?"

Chuck shook his head. "No, not exactly…"

"Oh, so it was a mistake?"

Head shake again: "No, not exactly…Let's just say I didn't understand what I was doing when I got the Intersect. I didn't choose it. It sorta chose me…"

Sarah shook her head, trying to get the story to make some sense. Maybe it was _her_ , maybe she didn't make sense, but she thought it was the story. "So you have that government... whatzit program in your head?"

"No. Yes. Not exactly."

"Can you please stop saying 'not exactly'?"

"Not ex...uh...yeah. Yeah, I can. Sorry, Sarah." When he finished, his eyes stretched a bit and she saw him glance at her in the mirror. His tone had been different, strangely familiar, intimate. She knew that phrase coming from those lips.

"Do you apologize to me a lot? I mean _did_ you apologize to me a lot?"

Sarah put the gun barrel back against his head. But then she started absently rubbing it in his hair. She didn't wait for him to answer her, she just softly asked out another question, almost absentmindedly: "Is your hair curly when it is longer?"

And then it came together for her.

She liked him.

 _I like you, Chuck._

An _echo_ of something _._

Her teammate. Not just _liked him_ but liked- _liked him._ ( _Really? High school emotional terminology? Oh, well, she was memory-challenged._ ) But she was married, and so was he. At least, he had been. Had they…?

Oh, God, she hoped not. No. Surely not. _Cheater_ was not a role she would play. But did he _like_ her? He acted as if he did. Yes, he did. Maybe that was why this was awkward…

...Well, other than the whole _you-are-my-hostage-but-I-have-no-memory_ thing.

Maybe they'd been dancing around their mutual attraction?

But her surety weakened. She knew she was drawn to him. She thought he was drawn to her. But her attraction to him did not feel...out of bounds...like it was some sort of cheat. It felt right.

 _How could that be?_

The whole thing maddened her.

"How long were we on this team?"

He was about to answer one of her questions when the car jolted. Sarah spun in her seat. Through the rear window, she could see the front of a heavy van as it closed to ram into them again. _A van_. Another flash of pain.

"Chuck, _go_!"

The car bolted forward and swerved at the same time. Chuck had changed lanes to go around an old sedan in front of them.

Sarah heard the answering roar of the van's engine as it sped up. The distance Chuck had put between them and the van allowed Sarah to look back through their rear window and the windshield of the van. She could see two men. She remembered neither (for what that was worth).

Maybe they could outrun the van. "Faster, Chuck, maybe we can lose them!"

Chuck floored the pedal. The car engine began to scream. Sarah stared, transfixed, as Chuck wove the car through the traffic, the angles perfect, the timing almost...electronic. _The Intersect_. She was witnessing it for the first time...the first time she could remember.

Gunshots.

The rear window glass shattered, small diamonds of glass showered Sarah. She fired back, both hands on her gun. She missed the driver, but forced him to swerve, nearly hitting a car in the other lane. The van slowed for a second and the distance between them and the van increased for a moment.

Cars jetted past, roaring.

Horns.

More gunshots.

The din added to Sarah's headache. She crouched in the rear seat. Suddenly, she was thrown into the floor; Chuck had whipped the car onto an exit.

"What are you _doing_ , Chuck?"

"Too many people could get hurt. I know this exit, we...I stopped here before...a while ago...on the way to San Diego. It leads to an old industrial park. We can lose them there. Anyway, no one will get hurt."

Sarah watched, still stunned, as Chuck arced the car through the stoplight at the end of the ramp, running the red light and screaming, shooting between cars like he was threading a needle. She made herself look back at the van, away from Chuck.

The van had gotten caught at the light, had to slow almost to a stop, tires screeching. Sarah turned back and could see the group of old warehouses off to the side of the road ahead.

Chuck slowed exactly enough to navigate the turn, turned again, then plunged between two buildings and stopped in a spray of dirt and black cinders. "Do you think they saw us?"

Sarah had looked back. The van turned into the industrial park. "Yes, they did. They're coming."

Chuck smiled a grim smile. It electrified Sarah. She had a jolt of insight into why she had him as a teammate, and why she was attracted to him. There was mettle in the man, hardware, and not just programming, software. She matched his grim smile and made sure he saw it,

And, just like that, they were no longer _hostage-taker and hostage_. They were teammates again. Present tense. The gears meshed.

Sarah nodded at Chuck. He put the car in reverse and sent gravel flying forward. The car went hurtling back as it had come. The van had seen them enter the park but could no longer know quite where they were in it. Chuck aimed the car for the first intersection the van would reach.

"Down in the seat, Sarah! Now!" The rear end of the car missiled into the side of the passing van. The buildings had kept their car invisible until it was too late.

Sarah had gone deliberately limp in the seat and the impact had not hurt her. She heard Chuck grunt as he whiplashed a bit from the impact.

Then he was out one side of the car and she was out the other, automatically dividing the targets. Chuck ran to the passenger side. The window had shattered from the impact and he sent a...dart?...into the man seated there, who was still groggy from the collision. Sarah went around the van and saw the driver stumbling out. She fired, hitting him in the shoulder. He went down, his gun flying through the air, out of his reach. But he wasn't after it, he was writhing in the gravel and dirt of the roadway.

Sarah got to the driver's open door and swung her back to it, so that she could see into the rear of the van. No one was there. The man in the passenger seat was unconscious. She went to the man she shot. He was hurting, but she had deliberately made sure the shot was not lethal. She wondered at that for a moment, and at Chuck's use of a tranq gun. It was a good thing. They had possible sources of information, and they were in a place that offered numerous hiding places. She walked over and grabbed the man's gun.

Chuck had gotten to the man. There had been a clear pause when he looked at the man's face. Chuck blinked.

"What is it, Chuck did you just... _flash_?" She did not know where the word came from, but it surged up and out of her, the fated end of the question, irresistible.

He looked at her incredulously for a second, but then grinned just a little, shrugging. "Yeah, it's different...now."

" _Now_?"

"Um, yeah, that was what one of the _not exactlys_ from earlier was about. The Intersect I now have is the new, pristine one. It...affects me differently than the other versions I have had. I'm still..." he paused for a word, "...adjusting."

"You've had more than one version?"

Chuck shrugged again. "The Intersect seems to hate seeing a _Vacancy_ sign on my forehead. Everyone else thinks one belongs there." A small grin, again.

"Why do you have it again?" She grinned back, couldn't stop herself.

Chuck looked away, back down at the man. "We can talk about that later. Right now, I'm trying to understand our odd couple here..."

"How do you know they are a couple?" Sarah was flummoxed.

"No, that's not...anyway, this guy here, the one bleeding..." as Chuck spoke, he was examining the man's wound.

The man had passed out from pain. Chuck reached into his pocket and pulled out a red-handled knife, Swiss Army. He peeked up at Sarah. "I know, I know, a big boy scout." He cut the man's shirt sleeve off, folded the sleeve into a thick compress and then held it hard against the wound.

He picked back up with his earlier comment. "...This guy here, not bleeding so much now, is a CIA agent, a good one, at least so says his file. The other guy, with the peculiar dart shaped growth on his neck, is a very bad guy, an underworld type with ties to the mob and recently, to terrorists, a real charmer. What the hell are the two of them doing together, chasing us?"

"You mean chasing _me_ , right?"

"No, us, because I am going to be with you until this is...over." She saw a shadow flit over his face but then it was gone. He gathered himself, smiled at her. "You can count on me."

She allowed herself to show the smile that lit her up inside. He was with her. She had help. She was not alone.

"Look, Sarah, I take it that we can dispense with the whole _hostage/hostage-taker_ thing now, right?" She nodded sharply as he paused. "'Cause we need to think. Why are they together? How did they find you?"

"I don't know why they are together. But I have had people tracking me since I...woke up, woke up on the docks…"

Sarah saw the curiosity and concern in Chuck's eyes, but he let her go on. "I thought I had missed a tail. But I don't think that now."

Sarah went to the rear of the van and opened it. Together, they moved the wounded man into the van. Then Chuck got behind the wheel and Sarah got in the car. They drove deeper into the industrial park. Eventually, they found an old building that had served as a garage. Sarah got out and shot the lock on the garage door and was able to open it. Chuck drove the van inside. Sarah left the car between buildings nearby, invisible from the highway, and she joined Chuck inside.

They left the men in the back of the van. The interior of the warehouse was cooler than outside, dim.

They found the spot where trucks unloaded and sat down on the concrete platform. Sarah found she was able to look at Chuck now without excruciating pain, although there was always pain.

She didn't understand it. Looking at him, and hurting while she did so seemed itself _familiar_ , although she was unable to remember anything clearly enough to know what the nature of the old pain had been. Perhaps she had developed feelings for him, fallen for him, a long time ago, but his being married and her being married...had meant that the feelings had simply existed unspoken, unacted upon, tormenting.

But where was her husband in all this?

She needed a timeline, something to help her. She looked at Chuck, at his wedding band. She saw him notice and then notice her bare left ring finger.

His face remained impassive, but actively so. He was forcing himself to subdue his reaction. But he was hurting. _Hurting_. He looked away from her and up and out a broken skylight in the roof of the building.

She broke the long silence. "I pawned my rings, at least, I take it they were really _mine_. At first, I didn't think they were symbolic of anything real...then, later, I realized that they were." Chuck continued to look up at the skylight. She could not see his eyes. He kept his face tilted away.

"Have I been married the whole time you have known me?"

Chuck lowered his eyes and smiled at her again, a smile so complex and enigmatic she could not begin to decode it. His smiles made her head hurt, but she found herself rating each one worth it. She gazed into his smile even as her pain increased.

He shrugged. "Um, no, not the whole time. You've been married...about a year, actually. And you were engaged for a while before that, and dating before that...But you have been involved with your... _eventual_ husband since early in our time on the...team."

She tried to process that. Years involved with someone. But she was a loner, wasn't she? It must have been...serious. But if so, why this attraction to her coworker, teammate?

"How long ago did you lose your wife?"

"Not long ago at all, although it seems like...forever. I still feel like I could just reach out and touch her." His smile was infinitely sad; it cleaved Sarah.

She needed to change topics. She wanted to weep. So much emotion, so deep, so sudden. She could not support it.

"So these two guys? Why are they together, Chuck?"

"My guess is that both sides are now after you, Sarah. The bad guys, um...the boss, I'm guessing, since Qu...since the underling...uh, washed his hands of you. On the dock?" She nodded once, grimacing. "And the good guys, the ones doing the bidding of the Intersect Committee."

He paused for a while, rubbed his palms along the legs of his jeans. He seemed ready to share something.

"Speaking of which...you...Sarah, you...have the Intersect too." He did not give her time to respond; he rushed on. "It's part of the story about your memory loss. There is a faulty version, sort of an Uncle Fester to the one I have." Even in her shock, Sarah squinched her eyes, trying to understand the reference, and Chuck noticed. "Sorry, bad pop culture reference. So, anyway, your intersect was causing you to have memory problems before Quinn took you. But it got worse, or Quinn did something to you, because, before he took you, you had lost details. Now...well…You've lost more than details. But I think someone wants you, maybe wants you dead, because of your Intersect, somehow." He stopped.

Sarah looked at him, at the ground. The Intersect. She had it. Had one of them. In her head.

"But why would my...Intersect be of interest to anyone, Chuck. It's faulty. It...hurts me. It's cost me my...life…"

Chuck winced and was unable to hide it. Really, Sarah realized, he simply hadn't tried hard to hide it. He did care about her. A lot. It was showing.

"I know something about that cost...Um, I mean that the Intersect had...has cost me too. Mine. Mine has. And I don't know why your Intersect is of interest. But it is the only thing that makes sense."

Chuck looked around. "I need a phone. I wish you hadn't felt like you had to make me throw them out of the car."

Sarah got up and went out to the car. Her bag was still there, in the front passenger floorboard, where Chuck had put it and then forgotten it. She dug into it and found the burner phone that she had gotten from Carina's bag. She went back inside and handed it to Chuck.

"Yours?" he asked.

"No, Carina's."

Chuck looked at the call log. "Oh."

"What?"

"I see she's only called your burner…" Chuck quickly shut his mouth.

"So that's my burner cell number? And you know it?" Her fear came back. How did he know that? What was going on? What had been going on between them? Maybe it was an Intersect thing?

"Yeah, yeah. I do. You told me." She stared into his eyes; he was telling her the truth. But she did not do things like that. She wouldn't have told Carina the number if she hadn't been using it. She shared nothing.

 _There is no predicting what piece of information about yourself will be your undoing. So share nothing. Forget where you were born. Forget that you were born. Forget your first, your last, your middle name. You have no name but your cover name. Your identity is under erasure. You do not exist outside of mission parameters, and inside them, you are whoever the Company tells you that you are._

"We were...we are...friends, close. You tell me things. I tell you things..."

 _Friends? Close?_

"And your wife was ok with that?" Sarah tried to control her tone, but her confusion was swamping her. "My...husband is ok with that? How _close_ are we, Chuck?"

They heard a siren in the distance and both tensed. It came closer. But then it faded, passed them.

Chuck pressed his lips together. "We will talk about that, I promise. But right now, we need to figure out how these two found you. And we need to get out of here, get to a motel. We need to hide until we have figured all this out, talked to Ellie and Beckman."

They went to the van and began to look through it carefully. Under the front seat was a device. Chuck picked it up and fiddled with it for a minute. "There's a tracking program on here. He walked around the van to Sarah and she heard the beeping sound the device had been making speed up.

"Well, I think we know how they found you. You have some kind of tracker hidden on you…"

She felt her eyes widen. "But I... _checked myself_...shortly after I woke up on the docks. I wasn't looking for a tracker, specifically," she looked away as Chuck's head shot up, a question in his eyes she was not comfortable answering directly, "but I think I would have noticed. I didn't. Everything... _everything_ was fine. I was beat up, but fine." Chuck nodded, his relief palpable. But then he realized it was and turned away. Sarah flushed. She felt as relieved for him now as she had for herself then.

 _Why_?

He turned back to her. "But then maybe it was something you drank, ingested. There are possibilities in the Intersect." And then Chuck's eyes got big. "Wait. Wait. I was able to access files in the Intersect actively. Not just passively, by seeing or hearing something. I just accessed data: data in my head that I did not...put there. Hang on…"

Chuck's gaze turned weirdly introspective, internal. "We can counteract what Quinn gave you. We just need a drug store...and a hardware store. Let's go." Chuck started to the car.

Sarah grabbed his arm. "Chuck, what about them?" She pointed to the odd couple.

Chuck smiled calmly. "The one guy is stable, so says the Intersect, but he's not going anywhere. The other guy will still be out for a couple of hours. We'll call 911 with the burner once we are gone."

"Ok, but after we make me invisible, we talk, right? About this...Ellie and...Beckman?" The names felt at home on her lips. "About the Intersect? About...us? Decide what to do?" Sarah looked at Chuck hard.

He swallowed before he answered. "Right. Right. We will talk. As soon as we get settled someplace for the night."

ooOoo

Despite the freezing air billowing from the air conditioner, his body was covered in sweat, and his hair matted to his forehead.

He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, and then bent over to pull up his pants from where they had dropped around his ankles.

She looked back over her shoulder, smirked at him as he finished moving. She raised up from all fours, so that she was kneeling on the bed, and she pulled up her underwear, and pulled down her tight skirt, wriggling to work it back into proper position. She looked over her shoulder again and he was now smirking back at her.

She took her long, gray-streaked red hair into her hand and pulled it off her neck, trying to cool herself.

"Well," Madeline commented, her cultured voice sounding strange in the room against the recent echoes of other, inarticulate sounds, "that was...intense. The prodigal comes home...It's been a while, Olin." Her smirk warmed into a smile.

Olin Huntaker buckled his belt and gave her a cold look.

"Don't get mouthy, Madeline, not unless I ask. A line like that more properly belongs to my wife. That...intensity…" his smirk grew, "had more to do with things outside this room than….anything inside it."

Hurt darkened Madeline's face for a moment, but then her smirk returned. "Has the Intersect got you all hot and bothered, Olin?"

Huntaker gave her his best funereal smile. "We took care of the pristine one for good. We'll kill off the faulty one soon enough. And then…"

Madeline laughed lightly but her eyes were dark, unreadable.

"And then…" She stood up and began to button her open blouse.

* * *

 **A/N2** Ahem. More next time in Chapter 9, "Heart Attack". See you then, sometime after the Fourth of July.


	10. Chapter 9: Heart Attack

**A/N1** Another chapter. Early.

I warn you that these earlier-than-anticipated updates are about to end. After mulling it over, I have added a layer of complication to the plot, and so I have more writing to do than I expected to finish the story. I will be slowing the pace of updates until I finish the last chapters. In fact, I probably won't post again until the whole thing is finished. But the story won't be a lot longer than I anticipated, 18 (probably) rather than 15 chapters. The point? Expect a brief hiatus.

Thanks for your indulgence. This story is stylistically peculiar, sort of _Norbert Davis meets W. M. Spackman_. It has been dark, angsty. Big goings-on in tight prose spaces. Fiddling with tenses. Ludlum motifs. Etc. I appreciate folks sticking with me.

Thanks for the reviews. It means a lot to hear from folks. It's great to know folks are reading the story (it really is) but it is hard to know what they are making of it unless they leave a review.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

ACT III

CHAPTER NINE

Heart Attack

* * *

Sarah was half-awake, Chuck beside her in the bed. For a long moment, she felt completely at peace, at ease, whole.

She started to roll over into him, to put her cold feet against his.

 _What am I doing?_

She closed her eyes with the force of the realization: she had shared this man's bed before. She _had_.

Shared it to wonderful effect, wonderfully: that was her waking body's report.

She couldn't recall it, picture it, re-live it; still, she _knew_ it, in her heart. And elsewhere.

 _Oh, God, I_ was _cheating on my husband._

Chuck was still asleep, and he rolled over into her, cuddling her. She stayed stock-still, frozen between the peace of his embrace and the shame she felt redden her cheeks. She was still trying to decide what to do, how to extricate herself from the fix she was in, when her stomach decided the issue.

Nausea asserted absolute rights over her suddenly, and she sprang from the bed and sprinted to the bathroom. She was violently sick. In the middle of it, though, she felt a cool washcloth eased softly against the back of her neck, and a warm hand gentle on her shoulder. "It's ok, baby, it's ok."

 _Baby?_

 _Oh. Oh, no. Damn. He_ loves _me. He's in love with me!_

Her heart sank. Her heart soared.

There was a long moment during which, she knew, Chuck finally recalled his own words, realized he'd called her 'baby'. Would he try to walk it back?

No.

He instead spoke diagnostically.

"Sorry. It was that godawful concoction I made you drink last night, Sarah, the concoction to neutralize the tracking stuff you'd been given. The concoction wasn't dangerous, but, especially since we had dinner out of the vending machine, I'm not surprised it's affecting you. It'll pass."

He ran more cold water on the washcloth, squeezed it, then re-applied it to her neck. His touch was again so careful, so attentive, that it unsettled her. She could not look at him. Sick as she was, she knew that she wanted him, and that she had, even if she'd only been intermittently aware of it, since she had first heard his name.

 _No, I wanted Chuck when I saw the desk clerk back at the hotel. The clerk reminded me of Chuck._

She reached up and across herself with one hand, resting her hand on his hand on her shoulder. Hers on his. His on hers. But she could not look at him, couldn't face him.

She was not allowed to have Chuck. She had no business wanting him. Maybe this was why he frightened her? Because she knew he was a temptation to her.

Had she ever been tempted like this before? Of course, she couldn't remember for sure. But this felt unique: powerful, all-consuming, irresistible. Once in a lifetime, life-changing. She wanted him so much. But she could not have him.

And then a name filled her mind, unbidden, unsought. She was immediately ensnarled in emotions that overwhelmed her.

Still not looking up at Chuck, she whispered the name as she stared blankly at the wall.

"Daniel Shaw. Daniel Shaw is my husband." She could feel Chuck tense behind her.

She finally looked up at him, saw surprised agony on his face. She was right. But she had to ask. "Is my husband someone named 'Daniel Shaw'?"

And she finally had a connected memory. (It had her, she didn't have it.) A moving mental picture. She was in a room, near a window. Chuck was there, standing before her, hurt in his eyes (he was trying not to be in love with her) and beside him was another man, dark hair, dark eyes (he was trying to be in love with her). They were both looking at her.

She remembered feeling miserable, confused, jumbled, _wrong_. She knew at that moment in the past too that she desperately wanted Chuck, but could not have him.

She was bound to the other man. To Daniel Shaw. She had told that man her _name_. Shaw knew her as... _Sam_.

 _Sam_.

 _I am Sam. That is the I in me._

 _I chose the wrong man._

 _I am the wife of Daniel Shaw. But I am in love, desperately in love, with another man, Chuck._

 _She heard her own voice, from the past, a different moment, the words choking her as she said them. The auditory memory came without explanatory context, disembodied: "Chuck, I've made a commitment, and not just to Shaw." She wasn't sure about what the other commitments were, but she had made one to Shaw._

And then the pain of remembering became too much. She slumped into Chuck's arms.

ooOoo

The night before, they switched cars as soon as they could. Stole one. The Intersect turned out to make that easy, but Chuck found it hard anyway. He kept wanting to leave a note, but Sarah finally talked him out of it. She couldn't believe they had that conversation.

Chuck had mixed the concoction of items from the drugstore and the hardware store while they were parked in the lot of a defunct movie theater. Sarah had choked it down. Chuck made a face for her, and told her it would take an hour or so it to do its job. They got back in the car and drove aimlessly. Neither wanted to start a serious conversation-although they were supposed to be having one. Soon, anyway.

But Sarah's confusion kept her from being able to settle on a safe starting question. And Chuck's worry that she might run if he told her the truth, and his realization that his mere presence seemed to be hurting her, made him reluctant to engage her. He told her jokes and hummed to himself. She listened to both but was mostly lost in her own head. The hour passed and they found a motel that looked sad enough to be of little interest to anyone, but clean enough to bear for the night.

Once inside, the difficulty of talking remained. Intensified. Chuck finally broke the spell of silence, telling Sarah about Ellie, his sister. Sarah was shocked as she listened, shocked at her growing conviction that Chuck's sister had become her friend. Her close friend. But not a spy. What did she know about Chuck, about Sarah? About them...together?

It was clear Chuck was editing the stories as he was telling them. What was he keeping from her? She was not being told everything, but she could detect no falsity in Chuck himself. He was trying to protect her, not mislead her, confuse her.

The discussion of Beckman was similar. Beckman had changed over her time with Team Bartowski. Softened. She and Sarah seemed to have reached an understanding, an understanding about something of the first importance to Sarah. About her husband? That felt...right. But Sarah was wary of her feelings. Beckman was evidently working to help Sarah, along with Ellie.

Sarah found herself believing all that Chuck said. His omissions did not falsify what he did say. She believed him; she didn't know how to feel about that quite, or about Ellie or Beckman. Sarah kept trying to understand what was happening to her.

Listening to Chuck talk was not like hearing about complete strangers, but it was not like hearing about friends, either. It was a little like hearing stories about familiar fictional characters, but then being told that the characters were not fictional but real. She had a place prepared in her psychological life for Ellie, for Beckman. But she had not known that until Chuck put them in those places. It was a little like noticing something that you had previously taken for granted, passed over, a house on a hill you knew was there but never looked at directly. It was a little like saying 'Hello' and 'I miss you' at the same time. It was bizarre. It was welcome. It was hard.

Hearing about Ellie and Beckman had caused Sarah pain, but nothing like the pain trying to remember Chuck caused and was still causing. After the discussion of Ellie and Beckman had wound down, they talked a little about Carina. Sarah's guilt about what had happened, especially what had happened at the motel, swamped her for a little while. But Chuck told her more about her friendship with Carina, and she came to realize that it had always been a bumps-and-bruises friendship, full contact, no punches pulled. He did warn her to watch out for payback.

But then had come time for showers, for bed. Chuck volunteered to shower second, and so she showered first. When she came out of the bathroom, Chuck was on a small pallet on the floor, made out of a couple of extra blankets from the closet. The bedroom light was out, although the light from the bathroom was adequate. Chuck rolled over onto his side, facing away from her, as she came out of the bathroom. He was determined to keep her comfortable, to try to minimize the pain he knew he was causing her. She smiled to herself.

She turned off the bathroom light and got in the bed. He rose from the pallet in the dark and made his way to the bathroom; she saw the light go on beneath the door. She lay there in the near-dark, listening to the water and to Chuck's soft on-again, off-again singing. Although she wasn't exactly sleepy, she felt more complete than she could ever remember feeling. She realized that when she was near Chuck these feelings of being centered, and being complete, saturated her.

But he was the _other man_. He was not 'C', not Mr. Fantastic. But how could anyone else be more fantastic than Chuck? The pain started up again, so she got up and disassembled Chuck's pallet. She rolled up one of the blankets lengthwise and placed down the middle of the bed. She returned the pillow Chuck had taken from the bed to its place.

A few minutes later, Chuck emerged, careful to turn off the light before he opened the bathroom door. She spoke in a whisper: "Chuck, get in the bed. I...I put a blanket between us, the Walls of Jericho, if that makes you feel better." Sarah knew she had put it there to keep herself on her side of the bed, not Chuck on Chuck's side. She felt him get into the bed.

"Anyway, the floor is gross. I can't let you sleep down there." She heard Chuck sigh, a long, sad sigh. She had a momentary sense that she understood the subtext of that sigh, but then the sense was gone, and all she knew was that the subtext was sad. Maybe she had somehow made him think of his wife. She hadn't meant to do that. But she didn't know exactly how to stop. Maybe if she knew something more about her...

"Chuck," she began, her voice filling the darkened room, although she was still whispering, "tell me about your wife...if you don't mind. She must have been...special."

Chuck was silent. And then silent some more.

Sarah thought she had made a mistake in asking, but then Chuck answered her.

"She...was... _special_. I've never met anyone like her. No one even remotely close. She...was...funny, really funny, and she was particularly good at getting me. Somehow, no matter how many times I would warn myself about it, she'd lure me into a Gotcha! moment. She...was...incredibly warm, especially in private moments, but sometimes even in public too. She...was...always more comfortable with PDA than me. And smart, God, she...was...smart. She made me... _me_."

Sarah was paralyzed by the distance between Chuck's wife and the person she took herself to be, an assassin, nothing, nothing but a spy.

Chuck's struggle with the past tense wet Sarah's vision. Tears ran down in the dark. She could hear how hard he was struggling to speak in that tense, and not in the present tense. His comment about feeling like he could reach out and touch his wife...well, he obviously really felt that way. It must be a torment to long for a person so much and not to be able to touch her...

Chuck added nothing more. He was not asleep, but he seemed to be exhausted by his words. There was a long, still quiet in the room. Sarah cried soundlessly. As she finally fell asleep, she unconsciously pushed the blanket from between them and rolled snugly against Chuck. So fell the Walls of Jericho, not with a trumpet blast, but a sleepy shove.

ooOoo

When Sarah regained consciousness after passing out in the bathroom, she was on the bed. Chuck was standing beside her, bent over her, looking at her with deep concern.

"Chuck," she demanded, reaching up to grab him by his t-shirt, "am I married to Daniel Shaw?"

Chuck kept his gaze steady but Sarah could see the superhuman effort it took. "No, Sarah, you are not married to Daniel Shaw. At one point, you had decided to leave Burbank and go to DC with him, but you...didn't go."

Sarah's mind focused. Daniel. 'D', not 'C'. Not Mr. Fantastic. _So_ not Mr. Fantastic.

"But Chuck, I remember that I told him...my name. My real name. Why would _I_ do that, why would I be thinking about leaving with him, what about my husband, my husband-to-be? Wasn't he around when all...the Shaw...stuff...all that was going on?"

She saw a look on Chuck's face. Resignation. He looked at her searchingly for a long, long time, then he sat down on the edge of the bed beside her.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bottle of Tylenol.

"I don't know how much this will help, but I guess it won't hurt. I don't see how to do this except by...ripping the band-aid away." She could see that he regretted the phrase. But he kept quiet. He shook a few Tylenol out into his hand. He held them out to Sarah.

She looked at him. She had thought he intended to take them. He put them in her hand, she had sat up, reached out automatically, and he then gave her a glass of water from the nightstand. She took the pills and then took a drink all while looking at him, feeling the pain that accompanied looking at him directly. She gave him back the glass and reclined again.

He blew a breath out through his nose and then set his shoulders. "Your husband-to-be was right there, Sarah, for all of it. That's because your husband...is _me_."

Sarah arched in pain on the bed. She felt a shaft of blinding heat in her head. For a moment, she could not see. When her vision returned, she jumped up from the bed and rushed toward the door.

 _No._

 _I am not_ her _. Not the woman he described._

 _I am a spy. I am no one._

 _I do not have a real name._

 _I am nameless, less even than Sam._

 _I am not Sarah._

 _My name is not Bartowski!_

But then she knew it was. Knew. No mental pictures, rather utter visceral certainty. And she knew she was Chuck's heart. She had known it but refused it since Carina said his name.

It was too much for her, too much to accept.

How could _she_ have been, become the woman he described? How could a man like him love her, love her so devotedly, so painstakingly, so...perfectly? She sank to her knees before she got to the door. She wept. The pain in her head trailed her tears, squeezing out drop by drop, decreasing. Her head ached, throbbed, but it was the after-effect of whatever had happened, no longer active torment. The shaft of blinding heat was gone.

She could not remember Chuck as her husband; still, she knew he was. She had wanted him the day before yesterday, yesterday, last night, this morning. Wanting before she knew what she wanted or what she had. She had had him all along. _She_ could have reached out to touch him. Her husband.

Chuck knelt beside her, his long arms curling around her tentatively. When she did not pull away, she felt their strength. He pulled her against him, to him, and held her. He was crying too. He softly brushed his hand over her hair, saying her name, again and again, a cry, a prayer.

 _Sarah_.

 _That_ was her name. _Sarah Bartowski_. When she was able to control her weeping, she put her arms around him too. She held onto him with all she had.

ooOoo

She extricated herself from his embrace slowly, making sure he knew it was no rejection. She stood and walked into the bathroom, wiped her face, brushed her teeth. She looked hollow, tired, needy in the mirror. She knew she still had bruises, scrapes; she was still sore. But she knew what she wanted, what she needed. She came out of the bathroom. Chuck was seated in the floor, where she'd left him, his knees drawn up and his arms around them. She walked to him. He looked up at her.

She found her voice again after a while. "Chuck, I am going to ask you to do something, and I want you to do it, no questions asked, ok?" She gazed down into his tearful, reddened eyes. He nodded, a half-smile on his face.

"Make love to me, Chuck. I want to create a memory of being your wife. Everything else can wait."

ooOoo

He stood and held out his hand. She took it and stepped to him. He picked her up and placed her on the bed. She reached out to touch him.

Her husband.

Her heart.

"Are you sure? I don't want to hurt you."

"It's ok, Chuck; I need this. I want this." Chuck delayed a moment, then looked deep into her eyes. Even reddened from crying, he could see they were Sarah Bartowski blue.

ooOoo

For a time, the Intersects were forgotten, the spy world, the whole world, was forgotten. The bed in the motel room held all that existed. Beyond it there was nothing. Sarah knew Chuck again for the first time. She discovered what she had already found.

She loved him.

She always had.

ooOoo

Carina arrived in Castle in a mood. She'd _harrumphed_ her way in and then glared at Beckman and Casey and Ellie and Morgan when she saw them. She was hot and tired. Hitchhiking was not, she now knew, her favorite mode of travel.

"Don't say a word. Don't add embarrassment to failure. Any word?"

Beckman answered. "No, none. We don't know where they are."

Carina fell into a chair with a tired sigh. "Damn it."

"Do you think Sarah will hurt Chuck?" Ellie asked the question quietly but intently; she'd clearly been waiting to ask it of Carina.

Carina thought for a moment, then shook her head. "No, Ellie, I don't. She didn't kill me when she could have, and the more I have thought about what was happening in the car, I am sure that Chuckles is still capable of stirring Blondie's pot."

Ellie's brows drew close and so Carina went on. "It was clear in the car that even looking at Chuck was causing her pain. But she couldn't stop herself. If I hadn't been sure she was in love with him before, I would have been after our little joyride.

"She doesn't remember herself, but in some form, she remembers him. He's closer to her heart, I think, than she is herself." Everyone, Morgan included, looked at Carina with a bit of shock. She frowned. "What? Can't I talk _romantically_? I can, you know. I have many talents." Morgan dropped his head, embarrassed. The others smiled at her and each other.

"Well," Casey interjected, "enough of the emotional crap. What do we do about all this? Are we just going to sit here?" In answer, they all moved together to the large central table and sat down.

Beckman looked at them and then began. "I think that someone wants the Intersect gone. Completely gone. Erased. Whoever that is, he or she does not yet know that Chuck now has the pristine Intersect," Ellie's eyes narrowed and she looked angry, but not surprised, "and that gives Chuck and Sarah an advantage, and us too. My guess is that right now Sarah is the target, taken to be the final carrier of the Intersect. Assuming she and Chuck are ok," Beckman gave Ellie an encouraging smile, "and we know those two, so the assumption doesn't seem gratuitous, our enemy's attention will be focused on them. We need to figure out, if we can, how to help Chuck and Sarah, and how to take the fight to the enemy."

Ellie raised her hand. Beckman shook her head. "Dr. Woodcomb?"

"Can we talk for a minute more about Sarah's Intersect and what Carina saw?" Beckman nodded.

"Carina, when you found Sarah the second time, if I understand, she was...hunting herself, right?"

"Yes, she'd gone to a dive bar looking for help tracking herself. At least, that's the assumption that led us there and she was where the assumption said she would be."

"And you say that looking at Chuck caused her pain?" Carina confirmed it.

"So," Ellie said, thinking aloud, "I don't think the faulty Intersect itself can explain the sudden extent of Sarah's memory loss. We all figured Quinn took her for a reason. She was not a hostage, really. He wanted her to accomplish something for him.

"But she wouldn't have cooperated. Quinn knew that. He also knew she had the faulty Intersect. I have been thinking...I'm willing to bet that he tried to use the Intersect against Sarah, to use it to erase memories. Since her pain in remembering seems more intense with Chuck than anyone else, I'll bet that the memories Quinn went after were her memories of Chuck…."

Morgan jumped in. "But her memories of Chuck and her memories of Burbank, they are all wrapped up together, a package, so wouldn't Quinn have in effect been trying to make her forget all that happened since she got here five years ago?"

"Yes, Morgan, that's right. But why? Given what we know, the DARPA lab was likely the target. He wanted Sarah to steal the pristine Intersect. I don't know exactly how he planned for her to do that, but I suspect that was what he wanted. Maybe she was supposed to _use_ Chuck in some way? Anyway, my point is that Chuck is the focal issue. If Sarah remembers him, really remembers him, maybe all of Quinn's machinations will come to nothing. I believe that the two of them can work this out, if they stay together."

"What do you mean, 'really remember'?" It was Beckman who asked.

"I'm not sure...But my best guess is that Quinn did this to her in stages, and it may be that her recovery will go through stages too. That her reactions to Chuck are as Carina says is a very good sign.

"She may not remember him in the sense that she can replay scenes in her head, recall visual details of past events, but her embodied reaction to him is, well, what it has always been. Chuck could 'stir Blondie's pot'," Ellie made a face and looked at Carina, who shrugged one shoulder, "right from the beginning. Remember, we all knew it long... _looong_...before she was prepared to admit it." Ellie looked around. Everyone in the room, Beckman, Casey, Carina, and Morgan simultaneously and positively shook his or her head.

"When she finally told me they were together," Beckman offered, caught up in a sudden memory, "I told them, off the record, it was about damn time…"

"And you spoke for us all." Ellie smiled and went on.

ooOoo

Sarah had liquified. Her body hummed to itself, something low, slow, languorous and satisfied. Her heart was full of Chuck, of their love-making. She could not remember making love to him before, but all that had happened had been at once brand new and tantalizingly familiar, a favorite word she did not know on the tip of her tongue.

She opened her eyes to meet Chuck's. He was looking at her, happy and worried. She smiled at him and reached out to touch his hair, run her fingers through it.

"I am your wife," Sarah whispered to him, wonderment in her voice. "How did that happen, Chuck? My head is full of things that should have kept that from happening. Even with my memory...messed up...the manual is in my head. Falling in love, really getting married, those are two things I am sure the manual forbids."

Chuck's eyes were warm but his gaze became complicated. "Yeah, I get that. I mean I really, really get that. I spent three years...No, that's not right, not fair... _we_ spent three years fighting with that...manual. Three years of going through a super-slow-motion version of the last couple of days. I loved you from the beginning. You later told me you fell for me at the beginning too. But we faced so many obstacles, internal and external...I was sure you cared for me and I was sure you didn't. Like the last couple of days, it seemed like you wanted to look at me and like looking at me hurt you.

"Back then, I couldn't get a read on you. My heart said you loved me, my head said you didn't…I don't think I ever really understood how tormenting the position you were in was, at least not until I started trying to become a spy, and thought that doing so meant that I couldn't love you.

"I tried not to love you…" he slowed, his voice dropping with each word, "...but I failed completely. So I got my own taste of wanting to look at someone…" he paused and looked at her, "...and having it hurt to do it…Of wanting someone I thought I could not have...because of my own choices."

Sarah felt a deep, old sadness well up in her as he talked. She knew Chuck was referring to the time of the memory she had earlier, the one of Chuck and Shaw standing before her.

And she then felt a cleansing relief: she had not chosen the wrong man. She had chosen the right one.

Chuck was silent, looking at her again. It was very strange: when she let herself start thinking, Chuck seemed like a stranger to her, she could recall so little. But when she didn't _think_ , when she let herself _be_ , he felt like...no, he was... _home_.

She knew they needed to check out of the room in a few hours. She knew they had friends they needed to talk to, enemies they needed to fight. She had memories to uncover, a life to recover.

But Sarah stopped thinking. She reached out and drew Chuck to her.

* * *

 **A/N2** Tune in next time for Chapter 10, "Afterglow?". Please leave a review before you go.


	11. Chapter 10: Afterglow?

**A/N1** Making quick progress toward finishing the final chapters, so here's an update. We begin Act IV.

Thanks for reading and for the enthusiastic reviews.

Don't own _Chuck._

* * *

ACT IV

CHAPTER 10

Afterglow?

* * *

Madeline Upshaw sat perched on her chair at her large chrome desk. Her office was lit only by a single desk lamp, her curtains drawn. In the glow of the lamp, Madeline was leaning forward, although her back was straight. Her elbows rested on the surface of the desk, her fingers were laced together, her chin resting atop them. Deep in thought, she stared straight ahead, seeing but unseeing.

Her mind was spinning, revolving possible scenarios. She was playing the most dangerous game of her life, _playing both ends against the middle_ , as her grandmother used to say. She supposed that she was in something akin to love (call it 'lust plus pinches of both respect and fear') with Olin Huntaker, and had been for years. She had not intended to be anyone's mistress. But Huntaker had unromantically swept her off her feet. He was a complicated man. But it was his power that had overwhelmed her. Power unchecked by justice or mercy. _Raw, naked power_. Madeline wriggled in her chair.

An apparent straight-shooter, apparently simple, Huntaker was the most devious man Madeline had ever met. But his deviousness was not so much exhibited in deep, long-term planning, although he excelled at that, it was rather in his uncanny sense of people, place and time, his ability to position himself in the right place at the right time and beside the right people.

Huntaker was a man who cared only about power, real power, the _having_ of it, not fake power, or the mere trappings of power. He didn't care whether or not other people knew he had power; he cared only to have power. And slowly, over the years, he had come to have power, lots of power, and few, maybe only Madeline herself, understood the extent of the power he had. He was the most powerful man in Washington, although none of the other candidates for that title, like the President, recognized it. She recognized it because she had helped him to acquire it by slow, calculating steps over many years. She also knew that that had been her primary attraction for him. The delights of her mind and body he co-opted and enjoyed, but she had no illusions that she was anything but his favorite...utensil.

Over time, that knowledge began to chafe. To be used, never to even be contemplated as a person in her own right, a woman with gifts and desires of her own, gifts and desired perhaps not destined to be suppressed and preserved in _his_ gifts and desires…'Suppressed and preserved', Huntaker's actual damn phrase.

It had finally become too much. And so she began playing her dangerous game, trying to help Huntaker all the while hoping to outsmart him in the end.

 _Playing both ends against the middle. Grandmother's phrase. I sound like Diane Beckman, old before my time._

Beckman. Speaking of things that made Madeline chafe.

Roan Montgomery had been Madeline's target, her fascination, when she was a young spy, the man she most wanted for her own. The allure and challenge of seducing and laying claim to the 'master of seduction' drew her in, but before she realized it, she had fallen for him. Although Roan was never simply a one-woman man, he had fallen for Beckman just before Madeline could make her play. Since then, he had been, in some complicated sense, Beckman's friend, partner, and lover. Hers. Not Madeline's. Nothing Madeline did tempted Roan, and she had made some very overt...advances. Madeline had nursed her disappointment and envy for years. She coveted Roan.

So when Huntaker began to plot seriously with Madeline against the Intersect and the Intersect Committee, Madeline came up with a way both to keep Beckman at bay, off-balance, and to torment her: Madeline fabricated a torrid affair and 'leaked' it to the gossip mongers at Langley and elsewhere. She knew Beckman's pride and rivalry with her would prevent any confrontation, confrontation with her or with Roan. And she knew she could count on Roan not to deny it to anyone else who might mention it; he was always happy for rumor to notch his bedpost, inflate his reputation. And once it had been established as a 'fact', that very reputation would seem to confirm it to everyone else who heard it.

Madeline had enjoyed her recent chance to torment Beckman face-to-face. To tweak her in the coffee shop and on the phone. But now it was time to use Beckman and Team Bartowski to finish Huntaker, so that Madeline could ascend to his place. Her place. It was time for Huntaker's political man-spreading to take a serious kick between the legs. Huntaker had made a crucial error. Madeline had already planted the seed. Soon, soon. She was looking forward to wiping the supercilious smirk off Huntaker's face once and for all. For. Damn. Ever.

ooOoo

Sarah had not wanted to get out of bed. Still, she had known it was necessary. But as she feared, what had been so very good and so very right while they were (mostly) horizontal, became strained and awkward when they got out of bed. It was not that Sarah regretted what had happened.

 _Not at all. Not the least little bit._

It had been sweetness and light and heat in a long bitter darkness, one that seemed longer to her because of her memory loss, not shorter.

No, it was the disappointment that her memory had not come back to her while they made love, that was what made things strained and awkward. She felt so much, but the structure of the emotion seemed to have no scaffolding of memories around it, at least no memories that were available for recall, for conscious review.

She also knew that Chuck had hoped for the same thing, that he had looked into her eyes after the first time, hoping to see confirmation that her life had come back to her. She had not wanted to do so, but she had looked away from him for a second before she had looked back, smiled and kissed him. He knew it hadn't, then.

In that bed, she knew she could live without her memories, but she could not live without him. But she wanted her memories. She did. Desperately. But she wanted her husband most of all. What she had felt in his arms, the feeling of homecoming, _that_ was irreplaceable. Her memories were irreplaceable too, in their way, but as they had just done together, it was possible to create new ones. There was no replacing Chuck, no way to create a new one. She was sure of that even if she couldn't remember how he had come to be so irreplaceable, couldn't relive any of their shared history.

They were gathering up their things and trying to decide the next step. They needed to contact Beckman and Ellie, that was a given. But the best time to do it was not a given. They needed to know more about what was going on.

Chuck left the room and went in search of a newspaper. Sarah had everything ready for them to leave. She sat down on the bed for a second, waiting for Chuck. Her head was aching dully. It still hurt to look at Chuck, but the pain was less intense, constant and blunt, not blazing and blinding. She wondered what was taking him so long.

 _She had been waiting...waiting for Chuck. At a train station. Someplace overseas. Prague? She saw him. The memory hurt, squeezing her mercilessly. But it hurt everywhere, head and heart. He...he left me. He left me! She couldn't breathe._ She couldn't breathe. _He walked away. He left me standing there._

Her first re-lived memory of him was of him leaving her. She panicked. Maybe he was leaving again? Maybe he had left! She jumped up and...

The door opened; Chuck came in. He looked pale. He saw that she did too. But she spoke first. "What is it, Chuck?"

"You're all over the papers. They say you are a terrorist. You bombed a secret government lab. There are fingerprints and there's video and there's DNA...But you were in San Diego, not LA. _What the hell_?"

Sarah grabbed the paper from Chuck's limp grasp. He had the paper in on hand, two bags in the other. He was staring into space, trying to figure it out. She read the story.

 **Former CIA Agent Suspected in Terror Attack**

There was a picture of Sarah, black and white and grainy, but recognizable, beside the story, and above the fold along with the headline. Sarah stared at herself. The name beneath the photo was Rebecca Franco.

Chuck refocused and looked at her. "Did you see the name?" Sarah nodded. "The story is full of circumstantial evidence and quotations from unnamed sources. Spy innuendo. There's even an indirect gesture toward Team Bartowski," he looked at the article, reading it upside-down, pointing to a line. _Franco is suspected to have confederates in Burbank_.

"What the hell?..." He asked the question again.

Sarah read on.

 _Law enforcement and the intelligence community have banded together to in a massive search for Franco, who is suspected still to be in Southern California. She is wanted not only in connection with the bombing, but she is also believed to be in possession of crucial intel, information of importance for the safety of the nation._

Sarah wasn't sure if it was her earlier panic still affecting her or if it was the story, but she felt light-headed, dizzy. Chuck was right: _what the hell?_

"At the motel, the first night, the first night I remember, I used the name 'Rebecca Franco'. It attracted attention, drew Carina…"

"Yes, and Carina said it drew someone else."

Sarah shot a glance at Chuck. "What?"

"Yeah, she saw a man standing outside your motel room door when she arrived. It's why she had her gun out…"

"Oh, God. I thought she had it out because of me, for me. It must have been the man I heard sneaking around my motel door, not Carina. I thought maybe that was true. " Sarah hugged Chuck, burying her face in his chest. "I nearly killed her, Chuck." She told Chuck, in hurried, broken phrases, about the attack on Carina.

"It's ok, baby, you didn't. You wouldn't. I know you." He held her carefully, his hand rubbing her back.

After a moment Sarah stepped back. "She and I, we are friends?" It wasn't entirely a question. She could feel that they were.

"Yeah, yeah. Old friends. Good friends. You worked together as…"

"CATS." Sarah wondered at the word from her mouth. "What's that mean, Chuck?"

"You were part of a team of agents, all female, with Carina and…"

"Zondra!...And...Amy! But Zondra was a mole...No, _no_ , she wasn't...I can't remember." Sarah looked at Chuck, unsure of herself.

"Actually, you are remembering. For a long time, you thought Zondra was the mole, but you later found out it was Amy."

It all meant something to Sarah, but she could not quite clarify it for herself. She just knew she had felt...betrayed...Betrayed.

She pulled back out of Chuck's arms entirely, her eyes hardening. "You left me, Chuck. You _left_ me...in Prague, at a train station." She hadn't meant to say it like that but it came out cold, an ice-rimmed accusation.

Chuck started to respond. Then he stopped. Then he started again. "Yeah, yeah. I did. That was the beginning of...what I thought would be the end of us. I had the then-new Intersect. It gave me skills, spy-type skills. Beckman wanted to turn me into a spy, a super spy. They brought me to Europe to train me. Huh. _Train_ me." He shook away the verbal accident. "You didn't want them to do it, _me_ to do it. Become a spy. So, you prepared an escape for us, met me in Prague. On a train platform. We were supposed to run together."

Sarah felt her chest tighten, her eyes moisten, her breathing constrict. "But you turned me down. You said _no_ …"

"I did, Sarah. And I did it poorly. I hurt you. I really hurt you. I...you...you thought I had chosen the spy life instead of you...just when you had chosen me instead of the spy life. I couldn't explain it very well, and I…I...

"Well, we ended up back on the team again but everything was shattered, glass shards and slivers everywhere, and nowhere to step without hurting ourselves or each other...So we tried not to be together. I tried, God, help me, I honestly _tried_ not to love you. I repeated it like a mantra to myself. I started seeing someone else…"

Sarah felt her heart skip a beat. Chuck added quietly. "And you did too." He glanced down, away from her.

"Shaw." One word, a certainty.

"Yeah, yeah, and...Hannah."

Sarah felt a melancholy settle on her, a despondency, cloying and damp. "And we were both miserable."

"Right, we were...but we tried to fool ourselves, and each other, and Shaw and Hannah…"

"Is that why I told him my name, why I told him I was Sam?" Sarah could tell that although the hurt of that was old for Chuck, it was still deep. He was struggling, but so was she.

"I don't know...That's what I've always thought, or what I have always told myself. We talked about it a little, later, but you were...reticent...and I wasn't in a hurry to re-visit the memory, really."

He realized what he had said and his eyes turned apologetic. He went on. "I guess I always thought it was an...incantation, an _Abracadabra_ you hoped would conjure up something real between the two of you...using your birth name to _create_ something."

Sarah looked at him, but her attention was focused inward. "I remember enough to know that I told him that out of despair, not hope. Unless it was hope to be free of the pain I remember feeling…the pain I felt every time I saw you or was near you. Not the same pain as now, but...

"I wanted _you_ , Chuck, not Shaw. Given what I can recall," she screwed up her lips, indicating that it was not much, "I never _wanted_ Shaw. I was never drawn to him in any real way. I was just trying desperately to push myself from you. I was running from you, not toward him. I...did try to create something with him, but I conjured nothing." Her memory of the two men both standing before her told her all she needed to know about how she felt, if not about why. "I'm sorry about it all, Chuck." She felt herself blush, and she broke their shared gaze.

Chuck cleared his throat. He waited for her to look at him. "I'm sorry too, Sarah. Those...early years were hard for us both."

She looked pointedly at the newspaper then used it to gesture at the threadbare, barely livable motel room. She smiled a small, wry smile. "Well, the present doesn't seem so easy. But if this morning is any indication, we were worth it. _We are worth it._

"Be patient with me, Chuck. I know you, but...I don't know you. It's the damnedest thing: Like love at first sight, even though I know it isn't first sight. But it is too." She shrugged, at a loss for words. Finally, she asked all she had to ask by repeating one word: "Patience?"

"Always, Sarah. Always."

ooOoo

The group in Castle stared at the newspaper online, displayed on every monitor in Castle. The story surrounded them. _Rebecca Franco, terrorist_. Beckman got on the phone. Everyone else was reading.

ooOoo

Huntaker was pissed. Deeply and still more deeply pissed. The story he had worked to construct and control had something in it he had not put there. The lines about Rebecca Franco having intel important to the nation's security. The line was not attributed to anyone named. _Source unnamed_. Huntaker had talked to the reporter. He had her in his pocket; she was not about to cross him; she knew better. She had been deathly afraid when he pointed it out. She had no idea how the line had gotten there.

Huntaker knew the endgame was afoot. Now was not the time to have to contend with treachery. He'd make whoever did it an example, the kind of example that would be a powerful deterrent to future betrayal. Huntaker saw red, blood red. He would see more, lots more, if he had his way.

* * *

 **A/N2** To quote a lyric from Nico Stai's song, _The Skies Over Your Head_ , "the clouds are just everywhere". Tune in next time for Chapter 11, "Reddened".


	12. Chapter 11: Reddened

**A/N1** And...we're back.

Thanks for reading. How about a review? Lots of you out there silently reading. I'd love to know your thoughts or reactions, even if brief.

Don't own _Chuck._

* * *

ACT IV

CHAPTER 11

Reddened

* * *

Sarah sat back down on the motel bed.

It was time for them to check out, but she figured the motel was unlikely to insist. Virtually no one else seemed to be staying there. She put the newspaper down. She would think about that with Chuck in a minute. Right now, there was a delicious odor in the air and her mouth watered.

"What's in the bags, Chuck?" She looked at his hand. He looked down as if he was discovering them there. She realized he had been so lost in thought that he was. He separated the bags, now one in each hand.

"Oh! I grabbed some fresh croissants, chocolate." He nodded at one bag. " And then I saw the paper. So I bought…" He nodded at the other.

She took the bags from him when he finished and put them on the bed. Greedily, she reached into the one from the bakery, grabbed one of the two chocolate croissants and bit into it, indelicately. She moaned low in quiet response. Chuck grinned at her, enjoying her reaction in spite of the situation.

"What?" She asked with chocolate in the corner of her mouth.

She felt like she was on a first date, but a topsy-turvy one, having the meal after the sex.

That was mixed up, and even worse, she had a strong feeling that she was not a _first-date_ sort of girl, at least not under remotely normal circumstances.

 _But this isn't remotely normal. Or is it? And it isn't a first date._

 _Or is it?_

Chuck reached out to wipe the chocolate from her mouth, still grinning. As his fingertips touched her gently, she was struck by how ordinary yet intimate the gesture was, and by how comfortable she was with it, how much she welcomed it, despite the strange familiar novelty of everything between them.

"That's...like the third time I've heard that this morning." Chuck's grin widened.

"More like the second-and-a-half time. The croissant is good, and I am ravenous, but...earlier was most definitely better. Of course, I was ravenous then too." She smiled shyly.

 _Banter? I don't do banter. But I guess I do. And I_ like _it._

"Chuck, did we...um...on our first date?" She finished the croissant after she asked, and she put the bag down.

Chuck's eyes closed for a second as if he were savoring a joke. "Which one?"

"Huh?"

He handed her the other bag with a flourish. "Supplies for a disguise. It's not safe for me to be seen with Rebecca Franco." He grinned, then frowned at himself.

"Sorry, Sarah, not really a good idea to joke about any of this." He looked at her but she just shrugged slightly and took the bag. She looked inside.

"Hair color. Red. Really?" She looked up at Chuck, rolling her eyes. "Something about you and Carina I need to know?"

 _More banter? It feels natural. I'm not supposed to be funny. But maybe I am, a little..._

She grinned, pleased to see Chuck's ears match the hair color box. "No. I mean, I love Carina. But you know, not that way, _never_ that way. And anyway, she scares me." Chuck looked down for a moment, partly feigning embarrassment.

"And I don't?"

Chuck looked up. "Oh, you scare me. But I know you love me."

They both froze. Chuck's blush deepened for reasons having nothing to do with Carina. Sarah could tell he was wishing he could chase the words down, capture them, before they reached her ears. Sarah looked back down into the bag and for the moment went on with the list of its contents. "Scissors. Glasses. Dark lipstick..."

She looked up and she could see he was still kicking himself. She had hoped he would let it pass. Words were never easy for her, especially emotional words, but now...

"I'm sorry, Sarah. I don't mean to...um...presume. To slip into the present tense. Just pretend that I said that in the past tense. No, wait, that's not what I meant, either. I meant I know you...I knew...I know you like...I know you liked...No. No. Damn." His spiral ended in frustration, his hands tensed in front of him, frozen in an inarticulate gesture.

Sarah made herself hold his gaze. "Chuck," his name came out softly, just right, "I basically demanded that you make love to me as your _wife_. What happened in this bed was...eloquent with your love for me." Pause. She took a breath.

"I hoped...I mean...I wanted...I hoped what happened would...Chuck, I know I am your wife. I _feel_ it. I don't exactly know how or why, but I know it is real, I have never felt anything more real." She sighed, knowing that her situation made that sound weaker than she meant for it to be.

"And what happened in this bed helped me with the _how_ and the _why_." Her voice sank to an intense whisper. " _I do...I...I.._. _you know..._ But Quinn," her eyes narrowed and her voice rose, "Quinn stole you from me. I am going to get you back, get us back. All the way back."

She was quiet for a second or two. Chuck's hands relaxed. He knew this Sarah, as he had known the one who made love to him.

She stood up. "C'mon, Chuck. Let's see what I look like as a redhead. And you can tell me what that question about first dates meant. Oh, and can I have that other croissant?" She grabbed the bag off the bed before he could answer.

ooOoo

She quickly ate the second croissant. Then she applied the hair dye while they talked about their first date at the _El Compadre_. They eventually moved on to their second first date, the date interrupted by the looming, mountainous Mr. Colt.

Sarah found the stories funny and moving and sad. And frustrating. How could they have been so close, meant so much to each other, and kept denying it, denying themselves?

And then she heard that voice in her head again.

 _Share nothing. Feel nothing. Be nothing, be no one. Be nothing to anyone. There is only the mission._

She retrieved the scissors from the bag and, after a deep breath, she cut her hair short, even with her jawline, spiky. She put on the makeup, much darker than she normally used, and the glasses with their non-prescription lenses.

She looked at herself in the mirror. She looked like a stranger, but that had been almost a constant, to one degree or another, since she first saw herself in the mirror of the dressing room.

She turned to Chuck. He had been leaning against the bathroom door frame, studying her reflection while she did. Now he looked at her directly.

"What do you think?"

"You seem like a different woman." They both froze. Again.

ooOoo

They recovered from the moment and got into the car.

The motel parking lot was nearly deserted except for an old bicycle. It was propped on a kickstand. An elderly woman was seated on the concrete beside it, eating out of a mangled styrofoam container. Both Chuck and Sarah noticed her, and she waved at them, grinning toothlessly.

They got in the car and drove away. The old woman reached into her soiled blouse and pulled out a brand new cell phone. "I found them. They just left. Her hair is now red. Interesting choice." She had memorized the plate and she carefully relayed it to the person on the other end of the line. "Yes, you are welcome. The others have been alerted." She put the phone back in her blouse and finished eating the macaroni and cheese. It hadn't been in the trash that long, and she had an iron stomach, even if she had no teeth.

ooOoo

Beckman was about to scream or to pull out her hair.

She was standing in Castle, staring at her phone in disbelief.

She was no longer on the Intersect Committee. She was no longer in charge of anything having to do with the Intersect or Team Bartowski. Huntaker had figured out where she was going and he had gone to the committee. They had voted her out. The President had been informed of the decision. She was to return to DC at the first available opportunity. She remained the titular head of the NSA, but day-to-day operations were going to be handled by others-no one had told her yet who that would be.

Beckman was still staring at her phone as if it could supply an answer to the questions swirling in her head when it rang. Roan.

"Roan! Thank God!"

"Diane, darling, _what_ is happening? I've just been told you are _effectively under suspension_? Is that true? How can it be?"

"Yes, it is true," she said, nodding even though he could not see her. "I just discovered it myself. How did you find out?"

"Madeline Upshaw called me." Beckman felt her claws unsheath. "She'd picked up on a rumor, done some digging. But she also had other news."

Beckman choked back her annoyance and frustration. It was hard. She was still so tired, and past tired of Madeline. Beckman asked to know what it was. "Nicholas Quinn was found dead, along with four other men. It's been kept quiet, but he's been positively identified. He and his men were found in an abandoned building in LA. Gassed. Nasty stuff, evidently. Let's just say the corpses were ghastly. Pretzelled."

Beckman's mind was awhirl.

 _What the hell was going on? The charges against Sarah? The manhunt? The stripping away of Beckman's powers? The isolation of the Team? Had Huntaker figured out she'd given Chuck the pristine Intersect? Damn, she hoped not._

"Do you need me to come to you, Diane. I can be there in a couple of hours?"

 _Yes!_ "No, Roan. I need someone detached from us, mobile, in case this gets worse. Let me warn you: it might get worse."

Roan went on, undeterred. "Just give me instructions, Diane, tell me what you want me to do."

 _Tell me if the rumors are true. Tell me you've had nothing to do with Madeline._

"I will. Shift to our burners."

"Will do, Diane. Oh, any luck finding Sarah?" Roan's concern was evident. "Is this all connected to her?"

"Well, yes...I think so. And Chuck is with Sarah, we believe. But he hasn't checked in."

"How is she?"

"Still not herself, as far we know."

ooOoo

Sarah caught a glimpse of her newly red hair in the rearview mirror as she checked again for tails. _Milan. Special Bullets. Undressing. Chuck helping…_

Sarah felt herself redden. She punched the accelerator. Chuck had the burner phone. They'd been talking about what to tell the Team, about whether it was safe for them to go to Castle.

"Chuck, this isn't the first time I've had red hair, is it?" Chuck turned his head toward her and smirked, his eyes in the past.

"Um. Yes and no."

She gave an amused and exasperated huff. _That huff feels familiar._ "Chuck, can you please give me a straight answer?"

He laughed. "Do you know how often I have wanted you to do that for me?" There was no recrimination in his tone. Just surprise and affection. "Yes and no, because you were wearing a red _wig._ We were in Milan on a mission. You were disguised as a redhead, but your hair was not red. So, yes and no. An exact answer."

Sarah giggled. _I just giggled. In the midst of all this._ He amused her. "You're funny, Chuck."

Was this how she had always felt around him? Like the demanding voice in her head could be turned off or just ignored. Like her feelings were hers, and not someone else's, or no one's?

Like her feelings could themselves track things that mattered? That they put her in touch with what was real instead of obscuring it?

Like the world had a depth of field and a vibrancy of color that her otherwise well-trained senses simply missed until Chuck came into her life?

She'd had one, two, three, four, five senses working overtime, and had still managed to miss so much of life.

But then the Milan memory fleshed itself out.. _A quarrel. About something important, something that made her anxious. Her suitcase. Her suitcase?_

"We were quarreling in Milan?"

Chuck moved his lips to one side, compressing them. "Sort of."

"Oh, good, now Mr. Exactly decides to be vague." She smiled.

"No, no, it's just that you had moved in with me. We were together and...happy. But you kept your things in your suitcase, and your suitcase in your half of the closet. I was…"

"...Worried that I was keeping my options open, ready to run?"

He looked sorry, sad. "Yeah. Yeah, I was."

"I nearly ran at the motel. Running from things is...was...something I...well…" She looked at him, trying to reassure him that the woman-with-no-memory was _with_ him, with him for good or bad, better or worse. She wasn't sure he could read her eyes. She wasn't quite sure how to vocalize the reassurance, keep it from sounding empty.

It wasn't.

"You told me later, after you unpacked, that I...that I was your home." She saw his eyes were damp when she glanced at him.

 _Home. He is home. Exactly. He centers my world. Everything orients around him, around us._

 _How could someone like me have ended up with someone like him? How was it possible? I am...what I am. But he, he..._

"You smell like home to me, Chuck." She said it so softly, Chuck turned to her, gazing at her as if he had imagined it, wondering if he had.

Silence, a warm silence.

"How much do you remember, Sarah?" He was careful with his tone. No demand. But she knew he'd been waiting to ask or for her to volunteer.

"Scraps. Fragments. Crumbs. A few connected bits. Lots of images. Almost all emotionally charged. Good things and...bad. A lot of bad. And skills, methods, procedures. They all seem intact, except that I have...little sense that I have them until a situation calls them into play."

Chuck listened, holding his head thoughtfully.

When he responded, it was again in a careful tone. No blame. "You know, although we have been together for a while now, Sarah, I still know very little about your past. You are the most mysterious woman in the world, you know.

"I get that this might sound crazy, or might...make you angry, but I do sorta know what it's like to be you right now, to be wondering about you and your past. I know _you_ and I know a lot about what you can do. But not much, really, about what you have done. I mean, I know about _us_ , the past five years, so that's obviously a difference between us. But about before us..."

She nodded. He fell for her, fell in love with her, married her, knowing so little? Why? Why hadn't she told him more when she could? Not for her sake now, but for his then?

"Ever since the docks, I hear this voice in my head. A man. He's drilling maxims into my memory, tactics, strategies…"

"Langston Graham."

Chuck said the name reflexively. Sarah swerved on the road but then quickly got back in her lane. She blinked, a pain streak left behind her forehead.

"The head of the CIA. My…" she searched for the right word,"...boss." She knew without any trace of sadness or regret that he was dead. "And he is dead."

Chuck nodded a couple of times and then turned to look at her again. "Yeah. You were his...um...personal project, his...right hand. People in Langley called you his…"

"Enforcer."

She did not ask, she stated. She knew this too. The pain in her head began to recede a bit.

They were quiet. Chuck held up the burner phone. It was time to call. Past time, really. But Sarah shook her head, telling him to wait.

"Chuck, am I in the Intersect, your Intersect? Can you remember for me?"

* * *

 **A/N2** Obligatory XTC song reference? Check.

Tune in next time for Chapter 12, "A Presence with Secrets".

Review? Pretty please?

Hope everyone celebrating in the US enjoys the Fourth, and that everyone else has a great day.


	13. Chapter 12: A Presence, with Secrets

**A/N1** More story. Some backstory too. So, some things become clearer, while others darken.

Thanks for the reviews!

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

ACT IV

CHAPTER 12

A Presence, with Secrets

* * *

" _Chuck, am I in the Intersect, your Intersect? Can you remember for me?"_

Chuck glanced away. He stared ahead. His mouth worked a little, his lips compressing and decompressing. He turned toward her, rotating not just his head, but his whole upper body.

"I don't know if you are or not. There was a little about you in the first Intersect. I flashed on some of it because of...external stimuli. It...well, it created problems between us for a while.

"After that, I tried to avoid...flashing on you. I didn't want to know about you if you didn't want me to know. I came to realize I didn't need to know about your past. Your present was enough…

"I don't know if you are in here," he tapped his head, "or if you aren't, but I am willing to...look. For you. Are you _sure_ you want me to?"

Sarah paused. _Was she sure? She had been excited by the possibility when it struck her. Asked without thinking. But if she was in the Intersect, she couldn't find out about her past without Chuck finding out about it too._

 _Did she want that? Had she wanted it before?_

"So, even after we got married, I still hadn't told you much about my past?"

"Not much." Chuck came to a complete stop. Then he went on quickly. "But I didn't ask. Or I stopped asking. Sometimes you would tell me little things. Once in a while, something big. I figured some things out just _inferentially_. Carina...well, she likes to talk about you...

"But I was happy being with you in the now, in the present. I am happy with that. But, if you want to know, I can...see...if you are in the Intersect."

Sarah bit her lip. She had an anchor in Chuck. But she was still at sea. He loved her. She loved him. _Why couldn't I tell him I loved him at the motel?_

Why hadn't she when told him her past she had the chance? She must have had so many chances? Why had she let them all go by? If she had been willing to marry him, to promise him her present and future, why hadn't she shared her past?

 _What makes a person your asset? Imbalance of power. It is not just that you have a weapon and your asset doesn't._

 _It is not just that you have training and skills and the asset doesn't._

 _It is primarily that the asset is ignorant and_ you keep him or her ignorant _. Information is power_. _In particular, never let the asset have information about you unless that information is part of the structure of the manipulation._

Chuck was her husband. Chuck was not her asset. But hadn't she been treating him like her asset? Even if he didn't want to know, didn't believe he needed to know?

Sarah took a deep breath. "I don't know why I didn't tell you, Chuck. I...really don't. First my dad, then Graham...Telling me never to let anyone know me, or that I was nothing more than a cover...I...I'm sorry. But I...I want...no, I need to know, even if I don't remember myself, I'd need to know. So, please, tell me."

Chuck said nothing for a while, then she saw him put one hand on each leg, sit up straighter, and take a deep breath.

"You are in the Intersect, Sarah."

The air in the car thickened. She kept driving. Chuck swallowed hard, then cleared his throat.

"Maybe we should find a place to pull over…"

ooOoo

Huntaker finished the call and blew out a breath in palpable relief. He sat down the phone. Beads of sweat had appeared on his forehead. His hand was trembling.

That woman scared the bejesus out of him. _What the damn hell is 'bejesus', anyway?_

Talking to her was like talking an echo from the crypt. Her voice was cool and dusty, alive only in that it responded in real time, relevantly. Otherwise, it was far, far less alive than a mechanized voice on an elevator.

It was positively...creepy. That was not one of Huntaker's words, 'creepy', but she forced him to use it.

Huntaker did not scare easily. In fact, he would have said he did not scare, _period_. But that was before his master plan, and in particular before his realization that he needed the best, the deadliest assassin on the planet. With Madeline's help, he had found her. The woman's list of probable kills was long and spectacular. She had assassinated people who were thought to be secure, absolutely secure, from any and all attacks.

And she not only always escaped. It was always like she had never been there. She made ghosts seem substantial. Only the corpse, if that, was left behind. Her methods were varied, fitted to circumstance. Gun, bomb, knife, injection, poison, strangulation...gas. She killed from a distance; she killed cheek-to-cheek.

He had no name. No one knew her name. No one walking on daisies, anyway. Presumably, there were folks pushing up daisies who knew, but they were keeping their secret. All Huntaker had was a code name: _Archeus_. And that voice. _Bejesus_.

The code name was itself a marker of arrogance, assurance; it was a boast.

' _Archeus', the active principle of the material world, the chief cause of things, the plastic power of the old philosophers. The Cambridge Platonists. Cudworth._ Huntaker dimly remembered the term from a course in the history of ideas he had taken at Johns Hopkins as an undergraduate.

The name was a claim to status, the best, and an announcement of the ability to become, tranform into...anyone. No one had the slightest idea what Archeus looked like.

The only constant was the claim that she had black hair, but that might have simply been part of the legend she had built so quickly, the hair color one would imagine a female killer to have. Many were convinced that she had come from Southeast Asia, a child of poverty and desperation, driven into her life by the brutality of her childhood. Others were equally convinced that she had been a child of privilege born in Paris, but who turned savagely on the world she had been born into.

She was supposed to have been a student of Carlos the Jackal. She would never have known Carlos personally, of course (he was serving three life sentences in a French prison), but the rumors were that she had found men and women who had known him, even some who had worked for him-or so the stories went. All that was sure was that she was a master killer, a retailer of death, and that she had made the study of assassins both her vocation and avocation, if she could be said to have the latter.

She had become truly famous (at least in the relevant circles) only three years ago, after a series of spectacular kills, all in the space of a month. It was only barely possible to imagine her having gotten from place to place to do what she had done; how she had done it and planned such clean, perfect kills was a complete mystery. She had so far confined herself to Europe, Asia, The Middle East. She had not been linked to any kills in North America, although there were rumors of kills in South America, but the rumors still were wispy, even for rumors.

She was contacted by phone or intermediary. No paper, no texts. She initiated contact when word that contact was hoped for reached her and she found the contact worth her while. Huntaker's money had attracted her attention, as Huntaker knew it would.

What he wanted her to do had made her willing to come to the US. Right now, she was still in LA. Huntaker had no idea where she was in LA exactly, of course, where she had gone after she bombed the DARPA lab and killed everyone inside. He had made sure she had Sarah Bartowski's fingerprints to use as well as her DNA. For some reason, the DARPA assignment had enlivened Archeus' voice for a moment, as if she was pleased by it for personal and well as professional reasons.

She had not been similarly enlivened by the prospect of killing Quinn and his henchmen. But she had done it, and with 'extreme prejudice', just as Huntaker ordered. Quinn. Moron usurper. Delusional. Huntaker chuckled as he thought about Quinn's likely final moments...

Well, whatever. The really important assignment was still to come. Huntaker needed to be patient. He was good at that. In the meantime, Huntaker needed Madeline to isolate Team Bartowski. He needed Archeus to finish Sarah and Chuck Bartowski. Huntaker needed to be sure they were finished. Huntaker could not rest until Chuck Bartowski was in his final rest.

And then Archeus could do the thing Huntaker most wanted to be done.

ooOoo

Archeus hung up the phone, disconnecting it from the vast, intestine system of routing and rerouting that kept her untraceable, a ghost, omnipresent and nowhere all at once.

So, she was to kill the Bartowskis.

Fascinating. _Fascinating_. Fascinating.

Even a bit...exciting. Archeus trilled aloud. Huntress hunting huntress.

Her father would appreciate the irony.

She had studied Carlos the Jackal, adopted his methods, assumed his place in the world as the foremost assassin-for-hire. She was the second coming of the Jackal, the assassin of the future. But she had learned nearly as much, maybe as much, from studying Sarah Walker as she had from Carlos. A woman was always a woman's best teacher.

Archeus had always planned to kill her teachers, as her father had known she would.

Graduation day.

She would be valedictorian.

But Carlos was unreachable, at least for now. Luckily, he wasn't going anywhere. She could plan that kill at her leisure, perform it during some otherwise slow period. She would _end_ Carlos and save the people of France the expense of keeping the Jackal fed and clothed.

Sarah Bartowski, however, had just fallen into Archeus' hands. It was time for Archeus to tame Graham's Wildcard Enforcer, time for the pupil to teach the master the final lesson.

It was a shame that Sarah Bartowski had lost her memory. It would make killing her less satisfying, perhaps. But still, she would kill Sarah. Facing her. She would meet her so as to say goodbye. And she would kill Sarah's husband first, letting Sarah watch. Maybe that would... _jog_...her memories. Sarah's death would be more satisfying if she knew she had taught Archeus without ever intending to teach her or anyone. That she had taught the killer of her husband. Her own killer.

Graduation day.

Valediction. The saying of farewell.

She brushed back her long, black, straight hair. Picking up the phone again, she called the old woman who had found the Bartowskis.

She would meet with her. Archeus needed every detail: check and double-check. And then the old woman would have to die. She could not live after seeing Archeus.

No one could see Archeus and live.

ooOoo

Huntaker was beginning to feel normal again, to get over his post-Archeus dread. The woman was like The Plague, the Black Death. It was hard to recover from even her voice. It was like an infection, crawling, insidious.

Huntaker got up and went to his liquor cabinet. He poured a large whiskey in a heavy tumbler and took a sip. He toasted himself.

He had been the splinter deep under the flesh of Team Bartowski. After the death of Bryce Larkin and after Chuck Bartowski's download of the then-new Intersect, Huntaker had leveraged fears about Bartowski into a new role for the Intersect Committee.

It was no longer merely advisory; it became directive. Beckman ran the Team, but Huntaker maneuvered so that he would run the Committee. The Team knew nothing about this behind-the-scenes goings-on, and that was the way Huntaker wanted things. He wanted everyone to think that Beckman ran the show. Including Beckman.

But Huntaker had realized early on what it took everyone else a long time to realize. The Intersect only worked effectively _in_ Chuck Bartowski, and it only worked effectively in Chuck Bartowski when he was _with_ Sarah Walker.

Huntaker never wanted it to work in him, so Huntaker contrived to get the Committee to insist that Bartowski be trained as a spy. It was a makeshift gambit, but Huntaker knew Bartowski would never make a super-spy, at least not without Walker. So it was important that they be separated. Once Bartowski had proven he could not become a super-spy, Huntaker had every intention of bunkering once and for all. Then, after he'd buried Bartowski, it would have been easy enough to arrange some sort of accident, and really to _bury_ Bartowski, bunker to casket. But that had gone wrong. Bartowski ended up back in Burbank, back with Walker. _Damn Chuck Bartowski!_

 _My plans work against everyone but that bungler!_ Huntaker squeezed his tumbler, imagining it Bartowski's skinny neck. Anyway...

Huntaker knew that Walker did not want Chuck to be a spy, super or regular. Huntaker, through Madeline, knew that Walker had schemed to get Bartowski to run in Prague. Too bad he hadn't done what Sarah hoped, planned. Madeline's team had planted a bomb on that train. If Bartowski and Walker had boarded it together, they would never have unboarded. No one would have. Except in pieces. In bags. And, no one on the Committee would have dared push hard or worry long about the loss of two rogue spies...not even Beckman. But, dammit, it hadn't worked for some reason. Bartowski said No to Walker. And soon after, somehow, Team Bartowski was back in business. _Damn Chuck Bartowski!_

So Huntaker (again, with Madeline's help, although Beckman did not suspect it) forced Daniel Shaw onto the Team, as its new leader. Shaw was the Anti-Bartowski. Cold, pretty, deadly, and utterly and irreparably broken. (His psych evals had shown it, but Huntaker and Madeline had surreptitiously removed them from his file and replaced them with evals proclaiming him more than fit for duty). Madeline had found out about Shaw's wife and about Shaw's resulting instability, his Captain Ahab-like white wrath against the Ring and his wife's killer. Madeline discovered that Sarah Walker had terminated Evelyn Shaw.

Huntaker had again thought Bartowski would wash out, that Shaw would break him, and so Bartowski could be bunkered without protest from Beckman or the rest of the Committee, but the rubbery guy had bounced again instead of shattering. Like that rubber guy in the Fantastic Four. _Mr. Fantastic?_

When Huntaker cornered Beckman, forcing her require a Red Test, he was sure he had at last found the thing Bartowski would not do. But, again, against all odds, against all that Huntaker knew of him, Bartowski carried out his Red Test. Huntaker still wondered about that. _Dammit!_

But in the meantime, Madeline's informants in the Ring told her that the Ring was actively recruiting Shaw. Huntaker and Madeline made sure the Ring delivered footage of Walker's Red Test got to Shaw. (Manipulating the Ring turned out to be so easy.). He had expected Shaw to kill Walker, and maybe to kill Chuck as well, but, again, it hadn't worked out. Bartowski and Walker were maddening. And then they were...together. _Damn Chuck Bartowski!_

Through the Ring, Huntaker engineered Shaw another shot at Bartowski and Walker, and Shaw did manage to kill Orion, but yet again the plan failed. And yet again, Bartowski bounced instead of shattered.

At that point, Huntaker decided to pull back, bide his time. He thought he had gotten lucky when Team B ran afoul of Volkoff, and that Volkoff would be the one to finally end the Team for him. But even Volkoff was unable to do it. In fact, they turned him (back) into _Hartley Winterbottom_. _Gah!_

 _Damn Chuck Bartowski!_

A bit desperate (in hindsight), Huntaker unleashed Clyde Decker. He thought Decker could get it done. Decker proved effective at stalling and frustrating the Team. Still, he failed too. He even almost gave Huntaker's machinations away in a pointless fit of grandstanding.

So, Huntaker and Madeline oversaw Shaw's escape from prison. Again, failure. But Huntaker's master plan was in place at that point, the clock ticking toward D-Day and H-Hour. He needed Team B, Chuck Bartowski, gone.

He couldn't wait, so he found the Intersect-obsessed Quinn...and that had been a very bad idea.

Huntaker sometimes wished he had trained as a spy. He would have been a great proficient. He could have taken care of some of these things himself. If you want it done right...

Huntaker had always intended to use Archeus for the final part of his master plan. He had not wanted to involve her until then. He should have brought her in much sooner, instead of going through the stooges, Decker, Shaw and Quinn. As it was, she was going to need to kill the Bartowskis, then turn right around and do what Huntaker brought her to the US to do. There was much bigger game afoot. Tick, tick, tock.

 _Damn Chuck Bartowski!_

Once he was dead, it would be hard for Huntaker to resist the desire to dance on his grave. And Huntaker didn't dance. Normally.

ooOoo

Chuck had called Beckman on the burner phone.

She told him of the immediate termination order. It was chilling to hear it, but not a surprise, not after the newspaper. The fact that Beckman had been rendered practically powerless was a surprise. Beckman suspected Huntaker, but she did not think he knew Chuck had the Intersect, so she thought perhaps Huntaker had pushed her out so as to keep her from interfering with the termination effort against Sarah. He and Beckman finished up, then Ellie took the phone.

"Chuck? How's Sarah? You need to bring her to me. I need to see how things are."

Ellie was talking quickly. Chuck couldn't respond immediately. His throat was raw from sharing with Sarah what he had found in the Intersect. She was still in his arms, still sobbing silently.

"She's having...a hard time. She's remembering, but it's mostly fragmented, herky-jerky. Her head hurts a lot. And...ah...She was in the pristine Intersect." Chuck stalled for a second. "She wanted to know about herself, so I told her...I didn't know how to say No to her..." Chuck let that trail off, not sure he could go on.

Ellie let Chuck trail off, but then she asked _sotto voce,_ "Are you two back together?"

"We're together." Chuck did not elaborate. Ellie sighed in relief.

"Good, Chuck, for both of you. But keep in mind: whatever you just told her, she had time to process and your presence to help her, five years of your company and love, even if she never told you much of what she was processing. Actually, I know she didn't, Chuck." Ellie was stumbling a bit. "I think she probably...No, I know she told me more than she told you. Not a lot, but more. How are you, after discovering...all that, discovering Sarah's past?"

Chuck did not answer. Ellie went on. "Don't freak out, Chuck. You love that woman. You know that woman. Being with you changed her relationship to her past once, Chuck, and it can do it again.

"What do you mean, sis?"

"I'll explain more when I see you both. Here's Diane, again...I mean, General Beckman."

Beckman took the phone and talked into it but included Ellie in what she said, looking at her. "Might as well call me 'Diane'. I don't know what good the 'General' is anymore…

"Chuck, we need to find a place to meet. I'm worried about Castle. We're going to get out of here."

ooOoo

 _They parked the car. Sarah shut off the engine. She didn't look at Chuck. She stared straight ahead. She had parked next to a dumpster. It looked like the one she had hidden in when she woke up on the dock. Chuck began to recite in a soft voice._

" _Red Test. Location: Paris…" He paused. Without looking at him, Sarah motioned for him to continue._

 _..._

" _Termination Assignment. Cover: Rebecca Franco. Location: Mexico City. Target_ : _Mexican narcoterrorist Fernando Escobar._

" _Agent entered Mexico City as Rebecca Franco. She located Escobar and executed him. Clean kill. No connection to the US government. Kill apparently the work of a rival. Mission accomplished in four hours. Recently, two agents were lost trying to terminate Escobar, and neither was able to locate him before being marked and killed._

 _Note in handwriting: 'Extraordinary result. She was everything I hoped. A gifted killer.' Initialed: L. G._

 _Termination Assignment. Cover. Rebecca Franco…"_

 _..._

 _Chuck continued. It took a while. At some point, Chuck could see tears dripping from Sarah's jaw, down onto her hands, her hands wringing in her lap. A few minutes after that, she leaned into him, and between sobs, she said one word:_

" _Enough."_

* * *

 **A/N2** More next time in Chapter 13, "Broken, And Still Breaking". Be sure to tune in!


	14. Chapter 13: Broken, and Still Breaking

**A/N1** Forward.

Thanks for reading. Thanks for the reviews and PMs. Glad to know folks are being pulled along by the story!

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

ACT IV

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Broken, and Still Breaking

* * *

Beckman finally took a breath.

She had safely relocated the Team to a VA hospital run by a former NSA employee, a man Beckman trusted. He'd gotten out of DC, out of the spy life, and moved laterally, as it were, in the government. She hadn't talked to him in a long time, but that, other than making asking for favor awkward, was all to the good: no one would likely connect the two of them. He had a lab in the hospital basement that was currently unused. Its occupant had run out of grant money and had to shut down for a while. There were also a some unused, medically out of date rooms down there. While not appropriate for patients, they would serve to provide places to rest for everyone.

Casey, Carina, and Ellie were with her. Morgan had been worried about Alex, so he had gone to find her and bring her there.

On the way to the hospital, seated in Casey's Crown Vic, Beckman had done some thinking. Her thoughts had turned to Madeline.

Not, this time, out of romantic suspicion, but a different kind of suspicion. What kept repeating in Beckman's head was Madeline's volunteering of the idea that there was something in the faulty Intersect that Sarah had, and something in the pristine one Chuck had, somethings that together pointed to something major.

Lots of _somethings_ there; Madeline had been vague, either out of ignorance or deep policy. But at the time, Beckman, tired and jealous and worried about Sarah, hadn't really thought hard about the idea. It had stayed in her head, though, and now she was beginning to think Madeline had mentioned the idea for a reason, not just as a silly notion connected to a mythological device.

No, Beckman thought, what if Madeline knew about the Intersect, and believed this piece of information, but could or would only supply it sideways, not acknowledging it for what it was?

But why? Why tell Beckman something in such an...indirect way?

Because telling it directly would be tantamount to admitting that Madeline believed that there was an Intersect and that she knew crucial details about it.

Still, while that would have been galling to Beckman, it wouldn't have been shocking. Whatever else was true about Madeline, she was good at what she did and she had the money to hire the best people. If Fulcrum and the Ring had learned as much as they had about the Intersect, it wasn't shocking Madeline knew about it too.

Beckman wanted to kick herself. She thought about Madeline eating the poundcake. A clever distraction at least, a way of making what she was saying seem less...important. Dessert spy chit chat.

But Madeline was not the chit chat sort, really. And she had taken some pains to say what she had said, had done it (Beckman now realized) _artfully_.

Beckman grabbed the printout of the article about Rebecca Franco. What was the line? Franco had crucial intel: that's what it said. Why put that in the article? Why mention _confederates_ in Burbank?

And then it clicked over.

Because Madeline is sending a message. In complicated stages. Sarah knew something that mattered, something that was in the faulty Intersect but not the pristine one. But its significance was only clear in relation to something in the pristine one.

Puzzle pieces that together showed something that apart could not be seen. Beckman was sure she was right. She was sure the coffee shop line and the lines in the article were mutually implicating. Madeline was involved in this, whatever _this_ turned out to be. And the line in the article was meant to make the right reader stop and think. Beckman had stopped and thought. She was the right reader, the intended reader.

She grabbed her laptop. She sent an email to Madeline, employing a cipher they had both used long ago, in their spying days. The email read like a check-in between friends, but Madeline would understand what it really said: _I've figured it out, Madeline. We need to talk privately. Soon._ She sent it.

At about the same moment, Morgan arrived with Alex. After Morgan introduced Alex to her, Beckman looked at him. "Morgan, I know you aren't Chuck, but I also know you have some hacking skills." Morgan tried unsuccessfully to look innocent. "I need your help." Morgan gave up and nodded.

ooOoo

The dumpster Sarah had parked beside was itself beside a gas station. Not a new, shiny convenience store/gas station, but one of the old cinder block buildings, housing a small office and a couple of vending machines, and a garage with a lift in which repairs could be done. A business of a kind almost gone.

When no more tears would come, Sarah pushed herself away from Chuck. Without looking at him, she managed to rasp out that she needed the bathroom. She got out of the car. When she got to Chuck's side of the car she stopped and looked back at him through his window.

"Stay in the car." She mouthed the words. She saw him smile through his worry. She wasn't sure what he was smiling about, but the smile made her feel worse than she had before, and she hadn't thought that was possible.

The dumpster obscured the bathroom doors from view. Sarah had noticed that from the car. The sign that read _Women_ could be seen from where Chuck was seated, but not the door to the bathroom itself.

Sarah went in. The floor was damp; she hoped it was from a recent mopping. The bathroom stank, the odor of the deodorizer thickly mingling with the odors it failed to mask.

The sink was small, chipped around the edges. Damaged. Like the redheaded woman staring at her from the mirror. Her emotions were spent; she had nothing left. She had never had anything to give. Her life had been about taking.

She looked away from her reflection, down into the stained porcelain of the sink, once white. She must once have been unstained, innocent. But she had a feeling she had not been able to remember that time, not even when she had her memory. Something had gone wrong. Terribly wrong. Only someone broken could have had the history Chuck had recited to her. What had gone wrong?

And then came a tidal wave of memories-her childhood crashed over her and washed her away. She held onto the sink to keep from drowning.

 _Her father. A con man. Her mother, gone, absent. Games, at first, fun, challenging. A father's pride in his precocious, beautiful blonde daughter, clever beyond her years. But too clever not to catch on. And then the decision to go on doing what she knew was wrong, because it was the only way she knew to hold on to her father, to her life, such as it was._

 _New towns. New cons. New marks. "Create trust without feeling it yourself. That's the key. Normally, trust creates trust. Don't give in. Learn how to make them trust you without trusting them at all. It's hard, but you are clever, Sam. Tell them to trust you, and mean it, but not the way they think."_

" _I don't want to do this anymore, Dad; please don't make me do this. Do what you have to do. Leave me alone." She held out her hands, pleading._

" _But I need you, darlin'. You're the ace up my sleeve, my secret weapon."_

 _..._

 _Langston Graham. Standing in front of her. An offer of a new life and another chance for her father._

 _Yes, ok. I will. She held out her hands, surrendering._

…

 _I broke a long time ago._

 _That good man in the car. My husband. He didn't say anything. He held me even after he knew I was a horror. I can't keep him, even if he is still willing to stay with me. The earth itself won't let me have him. I have stained it with too much blood._

 _I need to leave him. Now._

There was a knock at the door.

"Sarah?"

Chuck. She huffed, irritated with him for a second. "I told you to _stay in the car_."

"Um, yeah, about that. We have a history of me disobeying that order from you." She did not respond. He said nothing more. She wished she had some way of seeing him without him seeing her. She needed to see him.

He spoke again, entreating. "Don't go, Sarah."

 _How did he know? He knows me. He loves me. But he didn't know me, not until a few minutes ago. His love can't be real, or, if it is, it can't last. My past terminated our future._

"Sarah, don't go. I can't do this without you."

"Do what, Chuck?" Her voice rose, sounded strained, desperate.

No response. Silence. Then, at last: "Life."

ooOoo

Archeus unwrapped the garrote from around the old woman's throat. She was well and truly dead, a homeless person now worldless. Archeus took a moment and surveyed her handiwork.

She had met the woman in an abandoned building near the motel where the woman spotted the Bartowskis. The old woman thought this in-person meeting meant she would climb the ladder in Archeus' network. But the only ladder the old woman climbed, if she climbed any, was Jacob's Ladder. Still, the old woman had noticed that Sarah Bartowski had cut and colored her hair, gotten the license number, the make and model of the car, and its identifying feature: a dent in the rear driver's side.

Archeus rolled the heavy bootlace she'd used to garrote the old woman into a tight circle, then dropped it into a plastic bag, and then the plastic bag into the black leather doctor's bag she brought with her. She took off her gloves and put them in the doctor's bag too. It was all done methodically but efficiently, quickly.

Archeus had paused for a second as she took off her gloves, struck by the beauty of the coral pink polish of her manicure. Incongruous. Her hands, tools of death but ever so delicately, gracefully ornamented. _Nature, coral pink in claw today, if still red in tooth._

She smiled to herself, the smile an uncoiling snake. An onlooker would have wondered at how a face of such dark beauty could be devoid of human presence. Soulless. Animate but empty.

Archeus' network of homeless men and women had been alerted to the details about the Bartowski's. That invisible army would not fail her. It never had. She would know where they were soon. Then she would finish them. And then…well, and then she would begin her postgraduate work, and become immortal. Not just be comparable to great assassins of the past, but to become the one to which they are compared.

ooOoo

Sarah was fighting not to open the bathroom door and rush into Chuck's arms. She wanted to do that. But how could she? Still, her plan to separate from him here was not going to work. She would have to stay with him for a while longer.

She wanted to be in his arms. That was what her heart wanted, heavy in her chest, ponderous, aching for him. _Who knew she could love like this?_ It was news to her. The little she could recall of Bryce, Cabo, did not compare. She'd been genuinely fond of him; she hadn't been _just_ sleeping with him.

But she had fooled herself into thinking that the fondness had potential, a vector, that it could become, was, in fact, moving toward something else, becoming or moving toward what she was feeling right now for Chuck.

She now knew, and she must have known it in Burbank, that her fondness for Bryce existed in a different dimension of feeling than what she felt for Chuck. Had things been different, she could perhaps have become fonder of Bryce than she was. Perhaps. But that fondness could never have become love, become what she felt for Chuck.

No more than an apple could ripen into an orange.

"Sarah?"

"I'm not going, Chuck. Give me a minute, sweetie." _Sweetie. She was hopelessly gone where this man was concerned. How could she go? She couldn't go. She had to go._

 _I am broken. Irreparable._

 _And leaving him will break me completely._

ooOoo

Archeus knifed her car carefully into an empty parking spot across the street from the gas station. Her homeless network had picked up the car a while ago, and the Bartowski's had done her the service of stopping here for a strangely long time.

From her car, Archeus could see Chuck Bartowski standing outside the woman's bathroom door. She was surprised by seeing him. He was more attractive than she had thought when she saw his photograph. Tall. _Worth climbing, if not for the need to kill him._

Apparently, Sarah Bartowski was in the bathroom. Were they fighting? Really? On the run from both the good guys and the bad guys?

No, Archeus thought, looking more closely. Chuck was not angry. He was worried, heartsick.

Archeus considered shooting him right then. She could shoot Sarah when she came out of the bathroom. It was obvious that there was no exit but the door. But this was not a controlled circumstance, and this was not to be a _quickie_.

No. Not a quickie.

She wanted to draw this out, lengthen it, _ennnn-joooy_ it.

The only problem was law enforcement or the CIA or NSA finding them and mucking things up. She'd let Huntaker know to redirect the search to San Diego, claim that they had been positively identified there. That should give her the time she needed to enjoy this fully. To luxuriate in it, a bloody bubble bath.

Foreplay before consummation.

She could wait. She had them now. Slowly, slowly, a little at a time. A blade inserted millimeter-by-precious-millimeter. The pleasure had begun. She would ratchet it up in small increments.

She would kill Chuck with Sarah watching. And then she would kill Sarah while staring into Sarah's eyes, watching her life run out of them, blue like water. It would be...delicious.

Archeus licked her lips.

* * *

 **A/N2** Geez, I'm creeping myself out a little over here...

But this is kinda crazy fun, huh?

By the way, Archeus was my last Ludlum motif, my counterpart to his Carlos in _The Bourne Identity_. From here until the end, it's just us, folks.

Tune in next time for Chapter 14, "Vows and Constants".


	15. Chapter 14: Vows and Constants

**A/N1** The final chapter of Act IV. Act V is our final act, but it will run on for a few chapters. _Things to do, things to do…my rabbits in a stew_.

Wonderful responses to the last chapters. I appreciate your time and indulgence as I work out my cloud-covered story, as I slowly release all this pressurized heartache.

Don't own _Chuck._

ACT IV

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Vows and Constants

Chuck stepped back as he heard Sarah unlock the bathroom door. She looked resigned. It worried him; it worried him a lot.

"Sarah, are you sure you are ok?"

She stepped past him and stood with her back to him.

"I remembered, Chuck, not... _everything_ , but my childhood, I guess, up until I joined the CIA. I was a criminal, Chuck, a con artist, like my dad." Her tone steadily dropped in defeat.

Chuck stepped close to her and put his hands gently on her shoulders. She turned around in response to his gentle pressure, and he looked directly at her. "No, Sarah. You were a child. A minor. Your father was the criminal, the con artist. I like him, Sarah. But I've never forgiven him for what he did to you."

She flinched in his hands. "You know...Dad?"

"I do. He came to town a couple of times before we got married. The first time he gave me a lot of money...although the government took it back. The second time he gave you a lot of money...He paid for our wedding. But he...um...he didn't come. He calls me 'the schnook'."

Despite her shock and her interior chaos, Sarah chuckled quietly for a moment. That, 'the schnook', had the authentic ring of Jack Burton. But paying for her wedding. That seemed wildly out-of-character.

Still, if Chuck said so, she believed it.

"So you knew about my dad, my childhood?"

"Not much. Sort of like your spying. I had generalities...but you provided only a few particulars. But your mom told me some things."

Sarah looked at him, incomprehension tinctured with panic in her features. "My mom? How would you know her? I haven't seen her in...years."

"Not true, although I understand why you say that. We saw her recently. And your sister, Molly."

Sarah's knees weakened. Everything around her went out of focus for a second.

"Now, I know you are either making fun of me or confused, Chuck, I don't have a sister."

"Well…" As the walked to the car, Chuck began telling her about Budapest, the mission, the package, her taking the package to her mother. Telling her her story, again.

Sarah stopped and stared at him. "I remember a little of that; at least, I knew it as you told it. _I did that?_ I did, didn't I?" Her eyes told her surprise.

"Yes, you did. Don't let what the Intersect told you eclipse all the good you've done, Sarah. You wanted to know about termination missions. But there were others, and even with the termination missions, there are detail and details, and the details make a difference."

Sarah was still, quiet. "But, Chuck, the details don't change the objective of those missions, or that I...achieved...the objective in all of them."

She looked away from him and got in the car before he could frame a response. Chuck got in and they sat in a grave, uncomfortable silence.

ooOoo

Archeus watched as Chuck stood outside the bathroom door, waiting. Although she was still delicately aware of her surroundings and her gaze remained fixed on Chuck, she allowed herself to slip into memory. Graduation was a time for remembrance.

Her father. She saw him only rarely. Most of the time during her childhood, she could barely remember what he looked like. Dark, thin, graceful, like a dancer. She'd inherited all that from him. Her mother was really her only parent. Their lives were hard, except for those times her father appeared, and then they lived like royalty. But those times always ended too soon.

They also came at a huge cost for Archeus.

Whenever her father came to town, he expected her to have increased her skills. He had taught her to pick locks. He had taught her how to handle a pistol and how to break it down, clean it, reassemble it. He had taught her how to hide in plain sight, how to use other people, buildings, trees, anything, to conceal herself.

He taught her to run and run and run, without stopping. To run until the hitch in her side was swallowed up in the screaming pain of her entire body, and yet to keep running. He had locked her in closets, stuffed her in boxes, left her alone in the dark for hours. Endless dark hours. He did it, he explained, so that she would become patient, learn to suffer panic without panicking, learn to accept pain, learn to accept the dark. Eventually, he had taught her to crave the dark, to hunger for it.

Her mother did not approve, was horrified by it all, but she was clearly terrified of Archeus' father, and powerless against him; she said nothing, did nothing, watched her daughter change in mute, impotent pain.

Archeus and her mother never knew when her father would appear or when he would leave. Archeus anticipated his arrival with hope and with terror. She anticipated his leaving in the same way.

She loved him; she hated him; he was her father. He had made her Archeus. He deserved the praise; he deserved the blame.

She had not seen him for many years when a package arrived one day in the mail.

Inside was a slip of paper with the numbers necessary to access an account in a Swiss bank. There were also several passports and credit cards and IDs, different identities, complete and untraceable. Cash, in various currencies, was included, and a plane ticket with an open departure date.

And there was a letter.

Her father explained that he had raised her to take over the family business.

Her father was Carlos the Jackal. He was reaching out to her from prison in France.

He had arranged for her to be trained in Russia, by people he knew and trusted. He had made all the preparations, paid for everything in advance; in Russia awaited her deadly finishing school.

Her mother died that same day.

As Archeus sorted through the things in the package and tried to wrap her mind around her father's identity, her mother was run down in the street by a truck. It had been a hit-and-run, the truck and driver never identified, never located.

When the shock and pain of her mother's death dulled, she decided she had no reason not to do as her father wanted. She was on the plane before a cold certainty gripped her: her father had arranged her mother's death precisely to free her for the flight, to free her to become...him.

On that flight, she vowed to become what he wanted, and that meant that he had to die.

There could not be two of him at once. She was sure he understood that, knew that one day he would face the killer he created, the daughter he had fathered.

She excelled at her training. More than excelled. n a few weeks, her trainers were almost all obviously afraid of her. For good reason: a few years later, she returned and killed all the men and women who had trained her, all she could find, and burned to the ground every building that they had used.

No one could know who she was, or know about her training, her strengths, her few weaknesses. Only Carlos knew who she was, and she was confident he would keep his secret.

 _To the grave._

ooOoo

Archeus broke her reverie. Sarah had come out of the bathroom. She looked wan, beaten. She and Chuck were deeply engaged in conversation. Sarah had stopped. She looked shocked. Archeus wished she'd brought something that would allow her to listen to the conversation. Knowing what they were talking about would perhaps give her more to use against them once she had taken them.

She knew that Sarah had 'daddy issues', just like she did. Perhaps she was thinking about her father too?

Sarah got in the car. Archeus let them drive away. Her network would keep her informed of their progress in the city.

When night came, darkness would befall them both. Archeus would bring the night.

ooOoo

Beckman had Morgan searching Madeline Upshaw. She had had an out-of-the-blue but too fitting to be crazy thought: She told him to see if he could find any history of Madeline being in the same place as Olin Huntaker. Beckman had been a good spy. Her gut was telling her that this was all somehow connected, all one piece. What was going on, she did not know. But she was becoming surer of the players.

Morgan was not Chuck, but he knew his way around computers. Only his mad work avoidance skills had kept him from being far more valuable at the Buymore. Those skills, and his fear of the cage where repairs got done.

It took a while, but eventually, Morgan punched a button and a list of locations and dates came up on the computer. Madeline had a few times had a room in hotels hosting Huntaker campaign gatherings or dinners and at the same time as those events. It didn't prove anything, yet. But Beckman knew, she _knew_ : Madeline and Huntaker were connected. She huffed to herself at the word: 'connected'. She could imagine. But she didn't want to.

One of the hotels was in Los Angeles. Huntaker had been there, giving a speech in support of a candidate for governor of California. Madeline had been there too.

Beckman called Roan. The conversation started awkwardly when she mentioned Madeline, but she did not think Roan sounded guilty of anything, unless it was guilty of knowing the rumors. She let it go. She needed him to work his magic. There would be staff at the hotel who would remember Huntaker's visit. Maybe they would remember Madeline too, and maybe, just maybe, they would remember the two of them together. Roan told her he would be in LA in a couple of hours. He would go right to the hotel.

Beckman patted Morgan on the back and smiled at Alex, who had joined them. She needed to figure this out. What was Huntaker up to? Was it all connected to the Intersect? Maybe Huntaker's opposition to it was self-interested somehow?

She checked her email. Still no response from Madeline. Damn. Still, it might be better to talk to her after she was sure about her connection to Huntaker. She'd give her a little more time.

And then it hit Beckman like a body blow: _the rumors, Roan and Madeline_. They were Madeline's doing. _That bitch_. That bitch. _She played me_. _All this time. And she knew just how to do it_.

 _This is why spies don't fall in love_.

She blew out a breath, considering Roan and herself, considering Chuck and Sarah. _Except that they do_.

ooOoo

Chuck was driving but he kept looking at Sarah, eyeing her nervously. She knew he suspected something had happened in the bathroom, something more than her remembering her childhood.

They left the gas station.

She had decided to leave him. Not for her sake.

No, she wanted to stay with him, desperately. She wanted to reclaim her life, her husband, the future they had planned.

But she had that life and that husband and that future...falsely. Chuck had not known what he now knew. And although the acid of her past might not yet have begun to eat at Chuck, to eat through his feelings for her, it would, _it would_. Inevitably. He would wonder who he was married to, making love to, sleeping beside.

She would destroy him, maybe slowly, maybe not quickly, but certainly, eventually. She wouldn't mean to do it, she would fight it. But the past was fixed, unchangeable, always and forever what it was. And it would always enshadow their future.

She had the memory again of the little girl with the cookie.

 _Clara. Aunt Sarah._

"Chuck, does Ellie have a child, a little girl?" Sarah tried to keep sadness out of her tone.

He nodded. "You remember?"

"A bit, yes. Feeding her cookies." Chuck smiled and laughed. Some of the worry left his eyes. "She's crazy about you. We would babysit...sometimes."

Sarah glanced into Chuck's face and the unconscious hope it showed made her reel. Had they thought about kids?

 _Yes_.

 _But a killer shouldn't be a wife or a mother._

 _But...Molly. She had saved that little girl. The memory was hazy at best, but it was there, and feelings too, although the haze made them little more than warm, hard to specify in any greater detail._

 _Maybe it was something to build on?_

 _Not much._

 _Not...nothing._

 _Not nothing._

 _She had Chuck. She didn't recall the details of how she got him, but she had...she had suffered for him, suffered to have him; she was sure of that._

 _Could she keep him? Back in the motel room, she had tried to renew her vow to him with her eyes, in her eyes. For better or worse. But who could imagine_ this _worse? Her worse? Could it get better?_

Chuck was watching her face. "Sarah, what is it?"

"I'm starving, Chuck. We need to eat. I need to eat. Those two croissants...Oh, and you got none. You must be hungry too"

"Ok, next stop." He glanced at her again, out of the corner of his eyes. Worry, again, a suspicion that she was just changing the subject.

"Sarah, all those files, that information. I mean, I knew. Not the details. But I knew. I never lied to myself about your past."

She sat still for a moment. "No, but I lied to you about it-lies of omission."

Chuck was perplexed. "Can you lie by omission? It's true you didn't tell me. But even if you didn't tell me the truth, you didn't tell me any falsehoods. You never misrepresented…"

She broke his sentence in two. "Yes, I did. I married you. I represented myself as a fit wife and mother…"

"And that was...that _is_...true. Nothing I told you about yourself changes my mind about that. Not one jot, not one tittle. You are a wonderful wife. Someday...I hope...you will get to be the wonderful mother I know you'll be."

Sarah looked out the window and let Chuck drive on in silence.

She knew he was telling her what he really believed. But that didn't make what he believed true. Sincerity did not equate to truth. Lots of people sincerely believed the world was flat. They were sincerely mistaken.

And Sarah's world was looking increasingly flat. Dull.

Where would she go? What would she do? Could she be a spy again? She had the skills. But she knew she had no desire to ever do that again. She wanted to live and learn and love...with Chuck.

 _He was standing in his suit. He looked adorable and beautiful all at once. He'd vowed to always be there for her. He was as good as his word._

 _All at once, her vision was obscured, the obscurant a doily. Chuck lifted it and her vision cleared. They were practicing…_

 _...And they had practiced on the Bullet Train. A different kind of practice. A drawing. A family. Oh, God, she wanted it then. And she wanted it now. But…_

"Oh, Chuck, look. In-and-Out! Can we? Burgers?" She was so hungry it overtopped everything, even her worry and misery. But she really hadn't eaten much since the docks. Burgers, cookies, a croissant...rather, croissants.

Chuck smiled at her and pulled into the entrance, she saw him loosen his hold on the worry that had been on his face. He was hungry too.

They sat in the crowded restaurant and ate, chancing Sarah being identified, but trusting that her changed appearance and the inconguity of an assassin eating at an In-and-Out would keep them safe. It did. Sarah ate her burger with extra pickles, then picked the pickles off Chuck's burger and had them too.

Chuck watched her souse herself with pickles, a speculative look on his face. He flushed a little and Sarah raised an eyebrow, but his answer was a one-shoulder shrug.

Sated, full, she sat for a little while and had Chuck tell her the story of her wedding. It contextualized some of her recent memory images. She knew what was happening in the images: the actual wedding, their private 'rehearsal'.

It all made her so happy and so sad she felt like she would have to halve, binary fission, into one happy woman and one sad woman. She couldn't feel both emotions at this depth at the same time. It was too much. She needed to be two.

One to stay, one to go.

She stood, a touch peremptorily. Chuck stiffened. He grabbed at his worry again. She forced herself to smile and hoped he could not see the effort. If he did, he managed to hide that from her.

They got back in the car, each thoughtful. As they put on their seatbelts, their eyes locked. Each knew, knew what the other was thinking.

And the car filled with gas, colorless gas. But not odorless. They both smelled it before they lost consciousness.

Their world went dark.

 **A/N2** The course of true love never did...well, you know the rest, but this is pretty rough, even for true love. Tune in next time for Chapter 15, "Voices in the Dark".


	16. Chapter 15: Voices in the Dark

**A/N1** More story. Our final Act begins. Take a deep breath; we're headed into the final sprint.

Thanks for all the reviews and PMs! If you're out there reading and haven't checked in yet or in a while, do so. I love to hear from you, and it is all the extrinsic reward the work of writing these stories provides. Drop me a line! (By the way, I have had shaky, intermittent internet access while traveling lately, so I am a little behind on responses. I will catch up.)

Don't own _Chuck._

* * *

ACT V

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Voices in the Dark

* * *

Sarah woke up then doubted it.

It felt like time was out of joint.

She was in utter darkness. No light. None. Not a shaft, not a sliver, not a pool, not a spot, not a pinprick of light. Just dark.

Dark.

 _This is my life without Chuck._

 _Dark._

She realized then she was awake. The erupting heartache, intense, and the following panic, all-consuming: "Chuck!" she shouted his name and listened.

Nothing.

Gas.

They'd been gassed. She'd been so lost in her hurt, in dread of leaving Chuck, that she hadn't noticed anything. Except for him.

And for him, her.

He'd looked at her. He knew. He knew she was leaving.

His eyes. _Dammit._ But even said internally, the word was not a curse. Chuck was her blessing.

She closed hers, plunging from outer to inner darkness, water trailing heated on her cheeks. He knew.

And now he was gone. Maybe dead. And that was the last thing he'd known of her. That she was leaving him.

Dark.

Silence.

Tears.

"Tears, really? I wouldn't have imagined you'd fallen so far…"

The voice was cool, dry, dead. Dessicated, but with a barely detectable note of, _what was it?..._ satisfaction. And dissatisfaction.

"Are you worried that your...Chuck...is dead?" The words were clearly a question but the inflection never rose; it stayed dusty, lifeless. Interrogation by corpse.

"You should be worried. He is dead." The comment was final. Sarah felt more tears seep past her still-closed eyes.

"How many times did Langston Graham tell you about how to handle an asset, Sarah?"

Hearing her name in that voice made Sarah shudder. She was beginning to gather herself at last, trying to understand where she was, what was happening.

She was seated against a wall, brick, on a cold floor, concrete. The voice was hard to locate. In the room, obviously, but where?

 _Chuck? Oh, God, please...no. Let him be safe._ _She would not believe the voice, not yield to it._

 _So many voices over the years, telling her what to do, what not to do, who to be, who not to be. She'd internalized those voices, and their cochophany had drowned out the one voice that mattered but that she could not hear distinctly: hers. Until Chuck. She had no specific memory of this, just a conviction: because of Chuck, the voices stopped, or she could externalize them, resist them, ignore them. For the first time since she was a girl, she could hear herself think. Hear her own voice._

 _Chuck didn't tell her what to think, he just created quiet or distance; he did not substitute his voice for theirs, his calm words for all their wild and whirling words. No. He believed in_ her voice, _in its reality, and in its...goodness._

 _And she began to understand that she was good in Burbank, good with Chuck. Good. And, slowly, over the days and the weeks and the years, she had come to realize that she did not want to do what her father and Graham told her to do, did not want to be who they told her to be._

 _Maybe she wasn't who they thought she was. Maybe she was who she thought she was, the person Chuck had abounding faith in..._

She wasn't bound. Why?

Then she realized that although she was awake and directing her own thoughts, her body felt heavy, loggy. The effects of the gas were still present. The voice must have known that.

"Well?" The voice demanded an answer.

Why not give it? Perhaps the voice could be kept talking. Delay. Hope for something, anything.

"Many times, Graham told me over and over. Countless times. Drilled it into my head, like everything he told me. He didn't believe I had heard him unless I could repeat what he said _verbatim_. The _ipssissima verba_ …" Sarah's mouth was dry, the words came out pasty.

"Latin." The voice cut her off. "But then languages are your... _our_...thing, aren't they, Sarah. No one can be a human chameleon whose tongue cannot change color. We must speak the language, fluently, eh? To do what we do?"

Having heard the voice for a while, Sarah could detect a trace of an accent. Latin, but not ancient, South American, rather. Columbia? Somewhere.

Sarah answered the question with a question. "And what is it... _we_...do?"

The voice chuckled, low, barely feminine. Barely human. The chuckle was chilled, laughter on ice. "We kill. We are natural killers. Predators among prey. Why are you trying to deny what you are? You are an assassin. Death is your gift. And mine. As you helped teach me."

 _What?_ "What are you talking about?" _I was no one's teacher._

"My father told me to study you. He knew I needed a female...role model. He said you were the best. He found a way to copy your CIA file. It became my favorite reading during my teenage years. My young adult nonfiction. My _Twilight._ I have it memorized…" A pregnant pause in the dark, the voice lost in memory.

"Would you like me to recite a few entries? It is poetry, some of it, all-day, permanent red poetry."

"No, thanks. I'm good."

 _Strangely enough, the man I love recited it to me earlier today. Once was enough. Even in his voice, his kind voice, soft and full of love for me even as he recited those hard, awful things…_

 _No, once was enough._

 _More than enough._

"I know you've been having trouble...remembering." There was a slight spike of glee that kept that assertion from absolute flatness.

 _How did she know that? Who told her?_

"Who are you?"

Sarah could feel the darkness tense, although the voice did not respond. The voice wanted to respond. Wanted Sarah to know. This was all personal, somehow, for the voice.

" _I am you_ , or, perhaps better, I am your _shadow_." Dark and silence.

"Or perhaps better still, I am the woman you were _supposed to become_. But you failed her, left me to rescue her by becoming her, making her real after you abandoned her."

Darker, somehow. More silence. Ruminative. "But I suppose my father may have seen that coming and expected me to see it too," the voice became speculative, "so that you would be both role mode and cautionary tale. My father made sure I was trained...more perfectly...than you were. I am incapable of love; no one can ruin me as your Chuck has ruined you."

The voice simply reported, no emotional reaction.

 _If she says 'your Chuck' like that once more, mixing contempt and venom, I will find her and I will strangle her._

Sarah was beginning to feel her feet, her hands, slowly, just a little. Dancing needles in the soles of her feet, the palms of her hands.

" _Where_ is my husband?" Sarah's tone was cold now too.

" _Husband_! Really, Sarah. That word reeks of weakness, servility, submission. How could you have _married_?"

 _You don't know my husband._

"You should have become freelance, killed Graham; you should have become what you were meant to be. But no. No. You betrayed destiny. For a boy-man with a pocket protector and a ring. A Nerd Herder."

And memories clicked into place, almost violently. Memories.

 _Herder. Husband. Pocket protector. Rings_.

Chuck. Her 'C'. Her Chuck. Her heart. A brief flash, a memory, the counter of a jewelry store: _of seeing the engravings inside the rings, of having chosen them together, her hand in his as Chuck explained what they wanted to the jeweler._

His ring, inside: _Your heart is my heart. -S._

 _They'd traded hearts._

 _If she left, she'd abandon her heart and abduct his._

Another flash of memory, pulling her mind along, a child pulling a parent at an amusement park, flushed, eager, unchecked: _Chuck was standing at a counter, a call bell on it. He was looking at her, his gaze the most unguarded she had experienced since she was a child._

 _For a few seconds, for a minute, for...a while, her guard fell. It fell; she did not drop it. It never fell. It had been up since she was a girl, never relaxed, always vigilant and more vigilant. But it fell._

 _She fell._

And although that scene— _in a Buy More—_ was all the connected memory she got, it told her something: _she'd never had a chance_.

She'd been lost, had lost, from the beginning, even if she hadn't acknowledged it. He had terrified and confused and excited her all in equal measures. He moved her, moved things inside her. Things she did not know could move, not anymore. He stirred her. Brought her back to life.

She had fought against it, fought against _him_ , as she could, when she could remember to do it, or when Graham's voice filled her head, demanding that she do it.

But her heart had never been in the fight, not, at least, in _that_ way. She had wanted to lose, even while she fought tooth and nail. She wouldn't throw the fight, she'd been who she'd been for so long; she had to be bested.

And even though she didn't know all the details, she knew she had been bested, outlasted. Chuck had bested her, and she was profoundly glad he had. She had her victory prize, the rings, to prove it.

But she didn't. They were in a pawn shop in San Diego.

 _Your heart is my heart. -C._

 _How could she leave? She loved him._

 _How could she not leave? She loved him._

"I can...kill. I have killed. I am...not a natural killer." Sarah stopped, drew out the silence.

"I was not destined to be you, or whoever you think I was destined to be." Sarah had an intuition, followed it. " _You_ were not destined to be you, either. Someone, your father, I'm guessing, made you this way. Left alone, maybe if left with your mother, you could have become someone else, would have become someone else.."

She heard a sharp intake of breath in the darkness. She could feel the radiating heat of rage. Her aim had been true. The voice shifted attack.

"Leave my mother out of this." A threat, monotonic. "You will leave him. No matter how much you may think you...love him." Contempt, venom. "You will leave him. Because it is what you...what we...do. What we must do. Even if we...wanted someone, we could not have him. The earth itself will not bear us for long. We have to make the most of the brief time it deigns to support our deadly weight."

The voice had...moistened. It sounded slightly more human. This conversation mattered.

"Who are you?"

No answer. No answer. Then: "I am Archeus."

Sarah knew the name, of course. But Team Bartowski had never run afoul of Archeus, and she had only really come into prominence since Sarah had been in Burbank.

Still, the name was terrible news; Sarah's stomach flipped. Archeus had never been known to accept a mission and fail. And if she had been sent against Sarah or Chuck, someone was totally committed to them being dead.

"Archeus? Huh." My _pupil_? "But the rumor is that you were trained in...Russia." Sarah waited for the answer, not so much for its own sake but because it would make things clearer.

"Yes."

 _Oh, no. If she was willing to confirm that it was because she was sure Sarah would be dead soon._

 _Maybe Archeus wasn't lying about Chuck. Maybe he was dead. No, no, no. He couldn't leave her, even if she had to leave him._

ooOoo

Carina was going stir crazy. Or just crazy.

Everyone else had something to do. Morgan was working on the computer for Beckman, and Alex was sitting close to him, her hand on his shoulder, watching him work and whispering things to him now and then. Encouraging him, keeping him steady. He was terrified for Chuck and Sarah; they all were.

That terror was the background of the entire scene, present in everyone.

Ellie and Devon were busy...Intersecting. Ellie thought she had a way to get the Intersect out of Sarah's head, and she was explaining it again to Devon, to see what he thought. Beckman was on the phone with someone, talking quietly, too quietly for Carina to make anything of it. She couldn't tell if Beckman's call was professional or personal.

Carina turned again to watch Morgan and Alex.

Alex seemed to have...mostly...gotten past Carina and Morgan's past, and Carina deliberated kept calling him 'Martin' just to reassure Alex that Morgan meant nothing to her. The truth was, he did mean something to her. No, he was not and would never become a grand passion or something, but she did really like him and she had really enjoyed their...time together. It had been...different...and she remembered it clearly, and more often than she would have admitted.

She envied Alex. To be with someone who wanted you, as Morgan clearly wanted her, but who did not only _wanted_ you but wanted _you_. Morgan was not anything like as shallow as he tried to be.

Carina was beginning to be suspicious that she wasn't either.

She wasn't sure what she wanted, but the life she had been living, the personal part of that life, wasn't making her happy anymore. She could go on living it, of course, the habits were all in place. She wasn't miserable, exactly. No. It was rather like someone had pushed her horizons back, back, into the distance, and everything near Carina that had seemed so engrossing, so all-important, was revealed to just be...well, not so engrossing, not so all-important. She had a sense of being bigger than she had known herself to be, but also, at the same time, emptier, less fulfilled.

Alex leaned in and whispered to Morgan and he turned and gave her a quick kiss, warm and affectionate and promising passion, but not itself passionate. Carina would like to be kissed like that, a couple's kiss. A committed kiss. She had scoffed at such kisses in the past. Why kiss if the kiss were not passionate? She was beginning to think that question was not the obvious rhetorical question she had treated it as for years. Maybe there was not only an answer but a good one.

She wanted to try to talk to Sarah about all of this, to try to figure it out. Sarah understood commitment.

ooOoo

Chuck's fear in the dark was not for himself, at least not about bodily injury or death. His fear was knowledge. The knowledge that his wife was planning to leave him. He knew why. The problem had been lurking for years between them, stalking them from the shadows. Sarah's past. Her inability to get past it.

Chuck had been hurt by his recitation of her termination missions. But he was hurt for her, not for himself. Her reluctance to do what she had been more-or-less forced to do, her regret, her pain. She had sublimated all of it onto Chuck, had imagined her horror at her past to be his. He could tell that it was hurting her again to look at him, but not only because of what Quinn had done but because Chuck now knew what she had done. She saw herself through Chuck's eyes, as she imagined her saw her. But he did not see what she imagined he saw. He saw a woman who had managed to preserve her heart in the fury of assault after assault by her father and Graham, and during the long, lonely, hungry, thirsty siege of the spy life, and in the midst of her own bloody handiwork.

She was a miracle, not a monster.

She had conned out of a desperate desire to be loved by her father, she had killed under orders. Perhaps those cons and orders were corrupt, but then the guilt for what was done fell on the corruptors, on her father and Graham, not on Sarah. But Chuck knew that the fact an action was not blameworthy did not make it easy, did not keep it from preying on the person who performed it, perhaps wrecking that person. _Even if an execution is justified, who would_ want _to be the executioner?_

He sighed.

Chuck heard cool laughter in the dark, a breeze across dead leaves, a ripple in a glacial lake. "Considering the sins of your wife, Chuck? Your wife is an artist, or she was, before you took her red paintbrush from her. I'm going to go talk to her now. I am going to tell her you are dead. Think on that.

"I will be back for you soon, and I will kill you. But not in the dark. In the light, with Sarah watching." The voice closed on him.

Chuck felt something slip around his neck. A wire? A shoelace. It was pulled taut. His gas-numbed limbs refused to respond. He gasped for air, gasped again. He started to slip into an interior darkness deeper than his exterior one.

The lace slackened and he gulped in a huge lungful of oxygen.

"Did you know your wife terminated two different targets with a lace from her boots, two different missions? I have learned so much from studying her. She is a woman of infinite resource. I am sorry to have to kill her almost. Almost. But you were her fatal mistake, her ruination. She betrayed our calling for...you." The voice stopped, but before it had, it contained the barest hints of pride and rage and... _something else_. Envy. "Enjoy your final breaths."

The voice was gone. Chuck's neck was throbbing, the abrasion around it from the lace was burning.

He knew about the bootlace. Sarah knew too. It had been in the file, in the Intersect.

Chuck felt his heart rate continue to increase. The numbness he felt began to decrease. _The Intersect_. It was aiding his body, speeding his recovery from the gas. How? He didn't know, but he was profoundly grateful. With an effort of will, he flexed his hand. He had feeling there.

Feeling was spreading quickly.

Sarah had another resource, another weapon Archeus had not recognized: _him_.

* * *

 **A/N2** Ah, the Intersect, Chuck's blessing, and curse.

Are we having fun, yet? I can't hear you.

Thanks, everyone. Tune in next time for more in Chapter 16, "Hole, Hold, Whole".


	17. Chapter 16: Hole, Hold, Whole

**A/N1** Okay...after a brief intermission for a one-shot, now back to it.

Thanks for reading, and especially for the reviews and PMs.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

ACT V

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Hole, Hold, Whole

* * *

 _Russia_. Another memory. _Another dye job, black. Miserable heart-grinding loneliness, aching for Chuck. Volkoff. Saving...Chuck's...mother. A spy? A spy._ Poor Chuck, his life is a Robert Ludlum novel. _She saved his mother. Frost. The birth of Clara. Family._

 _Sarah's engagement ring. An open red box in a hospital hallway. Perfect. Janitor waxing the floor._

 _Sarah's life waxing, no longer waning. Fully alive, not half-alive, not a quarter-alive, no longer gibbous. A full, harvest life. Hers for the taking. She took it._

"I spent some time in Russia." Sarah tried to keep Archeus talking. _I don't remember enough to carry the conversation far._

"I know about that." A sneer. "For a while, when you worked to attract Volkoff's attention (and yes, I know of him too, of course; he tried to enlist me once, but I refused, _I_ do not work for anyone)...well, I began to think I would have to kill you then. I should have. It would have kept you from...falling. You could have died doing what you were born to do."

"Really?" Sarah asked. She was going to continue but...

 _Another set of memories of that time. Rushing across Europe, from place to place. Putting her hands around the neck of a man recently dead, but not by her hand. Leaving a trail of plausible 'kills' that were not kills._ _Just as the whole thing started with a 'betrayal' that was not a betrayal, started in France. Beckman._

..."My kills in Europe, in Russia, were _faked_ , Archeus. Or I claimed legitimate kills that had not been claimed or creditably claimed. I left evidence to make it look like…"

 _Of course, Archeus is responsible for DARPA._

"...Anyway, I haven't been in _our_ business for a long time."

 _No actual termination missions since…Chuck._

"You can have it. I'm not your competition. We aren't in the same business. I'm _out_."

 _I really am. We were quitting, starting our own business. A place with windows, above ground._

"And I cannot forgive you for that." Acidic, hateful, intense. Archeus' voice fully human for a second. Silence. The voice dialed back: dried, cooled, entombed again. "What do you do when your hero has feet of...clay?"

Sarah huffed, an acoustic smirk in the dark. "Let me get this straight. You have to kill me because I am this great...assassin. And you have to kill me because I...failed to be this great assassin."

"Yes." Darkness. No elaboration.

Sarah heard Chuck in her head: " _Twisty!"_ Then she said it aloud.

And suddenly, Archeus' hand was around Sarah's throat, her face close, although Sarah could not see it. Sarah could smell...perfume? She sniffed again, audibly, even as the hand tightened on her throat.

"Is that Guerlaine? _Le Petit Robe Noir?_ It _is_. Really?" She rasped this out through Archeus' grip. The grip tightened more but Sarah went on. "An assassin who leaves a scent trail?"

"And one that I could follow in the dark," Chuck spoke. And there was light.

ooOoo

Madeline Upshaw looked at the cipher from Beckman again.

Good. Beckman had figured it out, or part of it, anyway.

Madeline was in her apartment, in her robe and silk pajamas. Huntaker had come by earlier and had...gotten what he wanted. She had taken a bath and was now trying to decide her next move. It was nearly dawn.

Huntaker had been less gentle than usual, and that was saying something. There was no intimacy in their sex, but this time there had been...enmity. _Enmity?_ Did he suspect her? Now that she recollected, it had felt like he did. It would be just like him to have her one final time before having her killed.

Just like him.

Oh, no. Shit. He _knew_. She knew he knew.

It should have been clear from when he first put a cold hand on her. Arrogant fool. He thought he could play the part, but he couldn't. He'd have been a lousy spy. That hadn't been love-making, but she hadn't expected, hadn't wanted that; it hadn't even been sex; it had been subtle...violence, a prelude to...her death.

 _One for the road._

She imagined Huntaker thinking that as he had grunted behind her, smirking to himself.

 _Shit_. She jumped up.

Her 'go bag': she grabbed it; other things in were her other car in another bag. Without waiting to change or even to put on shoes, she fled from her apartment. Her bare feet slapped the tiled floor of the apartment building hallway. She pushed open one stairwell door and began to descend. As she did, she heard the other stairwell door, the one on the other end of the hallway, open. A cold certainty gripped her. A killer was on the way to her apartment.

She'd gotten lucky. She'd chosen the right door.

Entering the sub-basement parking garage carefully, she walked quickly, quietly in the opposite direction from the car she normally drove and went instead to the other car she kept there. One no one knew she owned. It was a black minivan.

She unlocked the door and got in, throwing her 'go bag' into the seat beside her after grabbing a hat from it. She pulled the hat low on her head and she drove out of one exit from the parking garage into the darkness. No one tried to stop her.

Luck was with her. Again. She hoped that was not all her luck gone.

Looking at her watch as she headed away from her home, she thought silently: _If I am alive in two days, I might just survive this._

ooOoo

"But, Ellie," Devon said, his voice tired, enervated, "Sarah's forgotten Chuck, her time with all of us."

"But that's just it," Ellie declared, making her point by jabbing her index finger at Devon, "she hasn't 'forgotten'. That's the convenient word, but it is not the right one. There isn't a right one, not a single word, anyway. Her memories have been...hidden from her, but not taken from her. Functionally, it is like forgetting, but, well, physically and psychologically, that's not what happened. She has the memories, she just can't remember them." Devon raised an eyebrow, so she slowed down. "Think about trying to finish a sentence. You know there's a perfect word to finish it, and you know that you know it, but you just can't dredge it up…"

Casey stopped his obsessive gun-cleaning and walked over to join them. "So, 'on the tip of your tongue', that kind of thing?"

"Yes, John, exactly. Chuck is on the tip of Sarah's tongue." She saw Devon and Casey exchange a look. She sighed. "And I know how that just sounded, or how it sounded to two _boys_ …" She glared at her husband and he gulped, nervously.

"Sorry, babe. You can take the boy out of the frat…"

"Don't I know it." Her quick smile erased the glare and undercut her exasperated tone. Devon relaxed. A little.

"As I was saying, Sarah does remember, in the sense that the memories are still _there_. So far as I know, whatever Quinn did was unlikely to have physically damaged Sarah's brain, and we know from the time when Morgan had the faulty Intersect that it does not cause much irreparable damage either, as long as it doesn't flash often. And Quinn suppressed it in suppressing Sarah's memories. She is no longer flashing in the Intersect sense of 'flash'."

Ellie paused, her engrossment in the problem eclipsed for a moment by an intense rush of worry about her brother and her sister-in-law.

"My problem is that I'm going to have to re-engage the faulty Intersect in order to allow Sarah to re-access her memories. And then I'll need quickly to remove it before it can do any more damage, preferably before she has another Intersect flash."

Beckman had also joined them. Casey and Devon both looked worried, thoughtful. Beckman looked hesitant.

"Then we have a problem, Ellie. I am sure that there is something in the faulty Intersect that is crucial to whatever it is that is going on, whatever Huntaker is planning. I need Sarah to flash on Huntaker, or maybe something connected with Huntaker. Huntaker always required that the Intersect Committee be kept behind the scenes, that he be kept behind the scenes. I now realize he had lots of reasons for doing that…

"So, we need Sarah to flash at least one more time. How dangerous will that be for her, Ellie?"

Ellie couldn't hide her concern. "I don't know. I'll have to think about it. I'd really hoped we could avoid that. The trouble is that no single flash is likely to cause severe damage, but any flash could be the one that does, the flash to end all flashes, as it were, the straw that breaks…well, you know..."

Alex and Morgan had joined the group and heard the last of the conversation. But Carina was nowhere to be found. Beckman noticed it first.

"Where's Carina?" No one knew. She'd slipped away at some point.

"Goddamn it," Beckman growled, "she's going to get herself or us into trouble."

ooOoo

For a moment, both Sarah and Archeus were blinded by the light.

But Sarah recovered faster. Darkness was not second-nature to her as it was to Archeus. She saw Chuck take his hand from the switch and then glide toward them. Glide.

Archeus released Sarah and wheeled to face Chuck. " _How?_ "

"Never underestimate a nerd." Chuck swung at Archeus and she danced away from him. She made an inarticulate sound and pulled a long, black knife from a sheath at her side. It looked blacker against Archeus'... _coral pink nails._ Sarah had no time to ponder that.

Her intense relief at seeing Chuck was replaced by terror. She knew fighters, knew how to gauge them; it was another skill she had but had not yet used. Archeus' nails may have been coral pink, but she was fluid, liquid metal, mercury, impossibly fast, and she was armed. Chuck, God, how she loved him!, was Chuck. She tried to move, to help, but she was still not able to.

Archeus crouched and smiled. The smile was like a wound on her olive face.

Sarah saw that face for the first time. Archeus was beautiful but in a surprisingly non-descript way, her features dark and even, symmetrical. Sarah could see how easily her appearance could be altered with makeup or a wig or glasses. Her height was average, her body slim but powerful, muscular, but not like a bodybuilder, rather like a world-class ballerina.

Her smile was a killing smile. She fully expected this to end with Chuck dead.

"I planned to kill you in front of her, but more...sacrificially. I guess this will do." Her voice was dead again, embalmed.

Archeus uncoiled in an attack. Vicious, immediate, powerful and precise. And Chuck moved away from it as easily as she had his attack earlier.

Archeus' smile vanished. Her black eyes, eclipses, smoldered. "This grows more...interesting. Sarah, did you choose this...boy...out of pity?"

The line was addressed to Sarah but meant to anger Chuck. He blinked but otherwise did not react. He was focused on Archeus, on the knife.

"Shut up, Archeus," Sarah growled. "You don't know the thoughts in my head. You don't know the feelings in my heart. How could you? _We are not the same_. We are not even alike. We are completely different. You are a monster." Sarah struck with words if not with her hands or feet. Maybe she could anger Archeus.

Archeus cursed under her breath, and the battle with Chuck commenced in earnest. The two moved in a blur, punctuated by grunts, gasps, and epitaphs. Archeus struck Chuck twice, but each time he was able to shift enough to receive only a cut, long and bloody each time, but not life-threatening. Chuck landed a kick that sent Archeus stumbling backward. He stopped for a second to assess the damage. Sarah could feel his revolt against the necessity of the fight.

Sarah watched in utter, immobile horror. Everything that mattered to her in the world was hanging in the balance. She could barely breathe. She could not help her husband. She could only watch. Fighting back a scream of frustration, rage, and terror, she could only watch.

 _Familiar. Familiar?_

Archeus counterattacked. But she remained partially bent over, protecting her ribs. Chuck had hurt her, really hurt her. The battle continued. Chuck was bleeding, his blood smeared on the floor in places and on one of the walls. It was also on Archeus, on the knife.

Her injury slowed her but she remained deadly, and in possession of the knife. She sliced at Chuck in wet black arcs. She swept Chuck's feet and he went down. She leaped on top of him, catlike despite her injury. She brought the knife above her head, holding it with both hands, and then she plunged it at Chuck.

Sarah was sure it was over. She felt a blackness descending on her, a despair so thick and so complete it would never end. She did scream, then, involuntarily. Her fear huge and spiky thing, bursting and alive, and it demanded a voice.

But somehow Chuck moved, faster than he had yet moved, and he was able to twist himself and to thrust upward. The momentum of Archeus' intended _coup de grace_ carried her knife and her hands mightily to the floor. The knife struck the floor near Chuck's head, sending sparks flying. And then the knife was out of Archeus grasp. She let out a cry. It was full of rage, but also pain. The meeting of knife and floor had reverberated violently along Archeus' arms and shoulders, shocked all the way to her ribs. She lost her grip on the knife.

Chuck was scrambling for the knife. He got to it, but as he did, Archeus leaped up and ran toward the door. Hunched, she swatted clumsily at the light switch but managed to turn off the lights. Her feet could be heard as she ran down the hallway.

There was a long moment of darkness and then Chuck turned on the lights again. He looked down the hallway. Then he turned and rushed to Sarah. He was panting, bleeding. But he only cared about her.

"Baby, baby, are you ok?" Sarah still could not manage much movement, but she was able to nod. She wanted to hug him, cling to him, but her arms would not work. "Yes, Chuck, ok. You?"

She glanced at his cuts. "I'll live," he offered. "Stay here. I need to see if she is really gone."

Before Sarah could stop him, Chuck took the knife and ran out into the hallway. If Archeus had managed to get to a gun...But Sarah heard nothing. After an eternity, Chuck returned.

"We're in an office building, one that's being remodeled. This is the basement, a storage area, I think. Archeus is gone, as far as I can tell." Chuck put the knife into his belt, then bent down and started rubbing her arms and legs. She was beginning to feel them again. The terror and despair were slowly releasing her.

"So she just...left?" Sarah was incredulous.

Chuck gave her a pained look. "It seems to be the season for leaving." He glanced away from her,

"Chuck," Sarah started but then realized she did not know how to go on. He glanced back, waiting.

He was always waiting for her. Patience. Always patience. Even when she had no claim on it that she understood.

"Chuck, I'm sorry. I was...planning to leave. But I'm...not planning that anymore. I don't know if I will stay, if I can stay, but I am not planning to leave. I just can't...I just can't saddle you with all my baggage. You are not a beast of burden."

"I guess you haven't remembered...that detail, and I haven't told you." Chuck's dark brown eyes darkened further still. He helped her stand as she looked at him.

"What haven't I remembered?" She put her arm around his shoulders. They started walking slowly, Chuck bearing her weight.

"That on our _first_ first date I told you I would be your baggage handler."

Sarah turned to him. "You really said _that_ to me, on our first date, barely knowing me?" She was full of wonder.

"The Bartowski Charm School was once open for business, but closed due to a notorious lack of students…" Chuck smirked ruefully at himself, turning away. She could tell he was still embarrassed by what he had said to her, years ago.

Sarah reached out, she could now move her arm, and she touched his jaw gently, turned his face toward her. "I don't remember it, but I know that must have been the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me." She paused, and they started walking again, more quickly, more steadily, her legs moving more at her command. "But Chuck, I am a killer. I am Archeus."

"No, Sarah. No. Think again. You are not a monster. Archeus is what you fear you are. But you told her, just a few minutes ago, that you are nothing like her.

I know you said that to provoke her, but I also know you. You believed it. You still do. I always have. Could you have become someone like Archeus? I doubt it. But here's the important thing. _You didn't_. You did reluctantly what she does...happily. She's animate, but she is dead. You, Sarah Bartowski, are the most deeply alive person I have ever known. The most creative, not the most destructive. You are a miracle, a miracle, Sarah." He stalled, his voice wet with tears.

Sarah stopped their walk, despite the danger they were in. She wrapped Chuck in her arms and she held him. Held him as tightly as she could.

He was bleeding. She was partially numb. She felt like they were as whole as she could remember them ever being. Not that she could remember much.

But she was remembering now, little by little. Maybe she would eventually decide she had to leave. Maybe. But maybe not. She was not going anywhere anytime soon. Whatever she was, and she still wasn't sure about that, Chuck was right, she was right: _she was not Archeus_.

* * *

 **A/N2** No cliffhanger, at least not exactly. Breathe, everybody, breathe. (I admit I've been holding my breath writing these chapters.)

Please take this moment of relative calm and leave a review.

My continued thanks to WvonB, halfachance and David Carner.

Tune in next time for Chapter Seventeen, "Datum Clarificandum".


	18. Chapter 17: Datum Clarificandum

**A/N1** Here we go again.

Thanks to all who are reading and especially all who have reviewed the story or sent me a PM.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

ACT V

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Datum Clarificandum

* * *

Carina had stolen upstairs, outside. She'd found a deserted side of the VA hospital and she was making a call. Her train of thought and of feeling, when she'd been downstairs with the Team, had made her think of Albert. He had been popping into her thoughts ever since her near-death encounter at the hands of her best friend. _There's a sentence you don't hear often, thank God._ A brief chat with Beckman had given Carina a good excuse.

"Hello?" It was Albert's, Al's, voice, deep and slightly raspy.

"Hey, Al! It's Carina."

"Carina! Wonderful to hear from you." She heard Al try to check his enthusiasm as he went on. "I...um...always...hope...like to hear from you."

Carina smirked to herself, but at herself, not at Al. She had been sleeping with Al off and on for a couple of years now. He was her only...regular. Of course, that wasn't saying much. Their visits weren't _that_ regular. But she had seen him again. And again.

Al worked for _The Washington Post_. He was one of the few serious journalists left on the paper, in the town. A truth guy. A digger. Concerned about justice, not political parties or payouts. And, truth be told, Carina admired him. A lot. He challenged her, vertically and horizontally. In every direction.

He'd paid a price for his concern for truth. He walked with a limp, the result of a stray bullet taken while on caught in a sudden firefight in the Middle East years before. That bullet had domesticated him, so to speak; he changed from chasing stories around the globe to chasing them around DC, a wilder and scarier place, really, than even the Middle East. Or so Al sometimes joked.

She knew he had deep feelings for her, and that he had from the first time they had been together. She was sure she was the only woman in his life, though he hadn't said so and she surely had not asked (even if she couldn't keep from wondering).

She met him in line at a coffee shop. They'd talked. Talked some more. And ended up in her apartment.

In the past, for any man to look at her when she left the bed as Al looked at her would have meant that he never saw her again. But he did. The next night they were at her place again. He wanted to see her and she had been unable to refuse. That was the start of whatever...this thing...between them was.

 _Of course, I haven't been 'faithful' to him or anything_.

No, she hadn't, but she also hadn't had another man to her apartment after Al. He'd been the last man in the bed she called her own.

She was starting to think that meant something, something important.

"Al, I wish I were calling to tell you I am in town, but I am not. I'm on the West Coast, and I am calling to ask for a favor."

"Name it."

He knew she worked undercover for the DEA, she'd told him, but when she'd not elaborated, he'd respected her boundaries and not asked to know more. He did know her work was dangerous. He'd seen her gun in her purse.

"I need you to check on Madeline Upshaw for me. Go to her apartment and see if she is there. Do you know who she is? I have her address."

"Upshaw. Upshaw? Oh, right. I haven't met her, but I do know who she is. Former US intelligence agent, right? Runs her own security firm, although the word on the street is that it isn't really a rent-a-cop sort of firm, more like rent-a-spook...Is that her?"

Carina smiled. Al was razor sharp; he held all of DC in his head. He knew the players and the teams, and he knew the agendas. "Yeah, that's her. Just see if you can find her. Confirm where she is. I don't think there's going to be anything risky in doing this, but be careful, ok?"

"I will. I'll call you back once I find her."

"Thanks, Al." Carina was surprised by her own voice, her intimate tone. _Intimate?_

Evidently, Al was surprised too. There was a pause and she heard him start to say something then stop. He was trying to gauge what that tone meant, whether to return it. He ended up somewhere between his earlier tone and her intimate one. "Ah...Carina, you be careful, too. Maybe I shouldn't say this, but I worry about you."

Carina's mind ran back to Chuck's fingers, tapping together in the DARPA elevator, the only exterior sign of his deep worry about Sarah. Maybe Carina had been wrong on the elevator. Maybe, if something happened to her, someone would be out there, tapping his fingers. Worrying about her. Maybe someone already was. She felt her whole body flush warm at the thought.

"Thanks for that, Al. Goodbye." She ended the call and wished there was a button to end the swell of emotions in her chest. _Is this what_ it _feels like, how_ it _starts?_ She didn't explain that 'it' to herself. She didn't want to. That 'it' scared her to death, even as it fascinated her too.

ooOoo

Beckman was perplexed, scared. _Where were Chuck and Sarah?_ Even given the difficulties they faced, they should have arrived hours ago. The only thing placating Beckman was that there was no indication that they had been captured by law enforcement or any intelligence agencies. Beckman had called in lots of favors; someone would have told her of any capture.

It was strange, though. A few hours ago, the folks directing the hunt for Rebecca Franco, for Sarah, had concentrated efforts in San Diego. Beckman wondered how that had happened. It had to be a false lead, a false trail. Chuck and Sarah were not in San Diego. Still, strange or no, Beckman was happy about it. It lessened some of the pressure.

Still, she needed to know where they were. She needed to get Sarah to Ellie as soon as possible. Huntaker and Madeline were up to something, but Beckman still had no clue and Morgan had not been able to find anything that shed light on their plan.

And she hadn't heard from Madeline. She wasn't sure she would. How, exactly, Madeline fit into the jigsaw was not at all clear to Beckman. She seemed to belong to both sides.

Carina came walking in, her phone in her hand. Beckman stepped to her.

"Where were you, Carina."

"Sorry, I was careful. I just needed some fresh air."

"And to make a phone call," Beckman added, gesturing at Carina's hand. Carina explained who she had called and why. Beckman nodded in agreement with what Carina had done. They needed to get a fix on Madeline and soon.

Beckman studied Carina for a moment. "I know Al. Are you two…"

Carina compressed her lips and shrugged hesitantly, quickly, a _maybe_ shrug.

Beckman went on. "I know him. He's interviewed me a couple of times and we have shared a table at a function. He's impressive…" She stopped.

"And you don't see him with me?" Carina was immediately defensive.

"No, Carina, I didn't say that. I wasn't thinking it either. I was just re-evaluating you both. It makes sense, actually." She nodded to herself. Then, she smiled for a second, reached up and patted her neat bun. "I do know he likes redheads." She held a straight face for a second and then chuckled. Carina joined her.

"Any word from the Bartowskis?" Carina had no more than asked than Beckman's phone rang. Everyone looked up, toward her, as she answered.

ooOoo

It was Roan. He was on his way to her.

He'd gotten tired of waiting. He wanted specific directions. She gave them to him and allowed her voice to warm as she did. Madeline's lies were no longer tormenting her, making her withhold herself just a bit when she talked to him, creating a coolness she couldn't make go away and that she knew Roan noticed but didn't acknowledge. He knew she would tell him when she felt she needed to, and not before.

She finished talking to him. Her phone rang again, immediately. It was Chuck on the line. He and Sarah were not far away, but they had no car. Casey checked the address Chuck gave her. They were on Roan's way.

"Chuck, Roan Montgomery is coming into town. He should be where you are in twenty minutes. Can you two wait, somewhere out of sight?"

"Um, yeah, General, yeah. We're in the lobby of a building being remodeled.

"But we have news. The assassin, Archeus, is in town. For us, evidently. She gassed us, was going to kill us, but we got away…She did too, unfortunately, and we have no idea where she went. Is Ellie still there with you? Devon? Where's Clara?"

Beckman was trying to process that before she answered. _Archeus?_ Dear God, what was happening? What was Huntaker up to? She felt like Huntaker had just pushed his entire pile of chips into the center of the table and was glaring at her over his cards.

"General? Where's Clara?"

"Um...She's with a friend of Ellie's. She's good. Ellie just checked. Everyone here is ok, Chuck. Are you two ok?"

"I've got some...cuts and Sarah's still coming around from the gas, but, ah, we're ok."

"Stay hidden. Roan's driving a dark green Lexus. He'll stop in front of the building.

ooOoo

Sarah looked up.

Chuck was peeking out of the front window of the lobby. It was papered over, as was often true of construction projects, so he had torn a small hole in the heavy brown paper to use to watch for Roan. He turned back to her.

"How are you, Sarah? Is the feeling returning?"

She nodded once and put out her hand. He took it. She could feel that his body was still trembling: after-effects of the combat, the adrenaline.

Sare was sitting on a wooden crate that he had slid into place for her. Her legs were still shaky. Her heart too. Chuck had saved her. She had no distinct memory, but she was sure, absolutely sure, it was not remotely the first time.

But then: _Paris. A distinct image of the Eiffel Tower, looking up at it… and Chuck swinging down but from the top of the Buy More. Chuck fighting with...Shaw. Where, Paris or the Buy More? Both? Where? She felt numb and frozen: all at once, or on two separate occasions?_

Nothing else came.

The confrontation with Archeus had activated Sarah's memories, agitated them, anyway. It clarified Sarah to herself. She had a past she deeply regretted. But, as she was now realizing, genuinely to regret that past did not...require her to forfeit her future.

Still, maybe that was a sacrifice she needed to make, a balancing of the scales? Maybe she would have to leave Chuck, and leave behind her life with Chuck, leave behind herself as she was with Chuck, leave all that behind.

She noticed that Chuck was staring at her, hard, but not unkindly. He seemed lost in thought, unaware of his stare. She was not sure what he was thinking, but she realized she still hadn't answered his question.

"Yes, Chuck. I think I will be good to go when Roan gets here." She watched him recoil slightly from her phrasing. She took her hand from his and stood. Her legs held her.

She cupped her hand around his neck, rubbing the back of it gently with her finger. "Let's concentrate on _now_ , Chuck. Don't worry about the future. And know this, because I do, I know it more certainly than I know anything else…" She paused and then found that the words were on her lips before she needed to will them there. " _I love you, Chuck_. I do. I do. I love you. Becoming Sarah Bartowski, even if I only remember parts of it, has been...and it still is, the great adventure of my life. It's the adventure I hoped for as a little girl."

Chuck brightened as she spoke but then dimmed at the barely audible note of sadness that had crept into her tone as she finished. But before he could speak, he saw Roan's car. He gestured to it and Sarah nodded. She clung to his arm as they walked quickly out of the lobby and to the car. Roan saw them and smiled.

They climbed into the back seat. Roan looked at them in the rearview mirror. "Well, if it isn't my favorite couple…" he reined in his jauntiness as he looked at them more carefully. Sarah knew they looked awful, exhausted, injured, upset. He went on, subdued: "Are you two ok?"

Sarah peeked at Chuck, hoping he would answer. He did. "Yeah, yeah, Roan, we're ok. Good to see you. And thanks." Roan nodded, acknowledging the greeting and thanks, but seemed unconvinced that they were ok.

"It's been a while. I hear that you've...ah...suffered some memory issues, Sarah."

"Yes, I have. Some things are coming back."

"Like your feelings for Chuck here?" He phrased it as a question but she was sure he knew the answer.

She felt Chuck tense beside her, waiting for her answer.

She felt awkward, talking about her feelings with anyone other than Chuck. It was hard enough with him.

"Yes...my...feelings for Chuck never really had to come back. They were there more or less from when I woke up like this. I just didn't have the...proper object for them...until he found me."

Roan didn't look into the rearview, but she saw him nodding. "I'm not surprised."

"Why is that, Roan?" Her self-consciousness abated. She was curious what he was thinking; all this mattered so much right now, her heart was so...tender.

"You know I love to read, the classics especially, right?" They both shook their heads. Roan laughed lightly. "A man cannot live by drinks alone." Then he added, _sotto voce_ , "Not even if he really tries." His voice came back up. "But I guess we really haven't talked about my reading habit, although I do recall quoting Shakespeare to you once some years ago, Chuck."

"'The lady doth protest too much, methinks'. _Hamlet_. I remember, Roan."

"It's all a play within a play, Chuck, human life…" The city, beneath the barely lightening sky, stretched to face the day, but neither Sarah nor Chuck was paying any attention. They were listening to Roan.

"Well, Sarah, you asked why I am not surprised. Here's why. _The only person you can rely on to miss the mark is the marksman._

"Plato argued that point convincingly long ago. He meant that only the person who can reliably hit the mark can reliably miss it, because only such a person is a good shot. The non-marksman may intend to miss the mark but hit it because he is a poor shot.

"Here's what I am driving at, obliquely, I admit: I teach people to pretend to be in love. To fake it. But I couldn't do that reliably if I didn't know what it really is, what it really looks like. If I couldn't recognize the genuine article."

He drove on for a moment before continuing, lost in his thoughts but not among the streets.

"I may not manage it... _love_...well in my own life, but I know it when I see it."

He paused and gathered himself. "I saw as clearly as I have ever seen it when I first saw the two of you together. That time you kissed at Casey's...It was clear that there was no going back for either of you. That didn't mean everything would be immediately rosy, and I know it hasn't, but you two…"

He looked at them searchingly in the rearview mirror for a moment.

"Well, as another old book says, one it may surprise you that I have read, 'love is patient...kind...it keeps no record of wrongs…'"

Roan's tone made it clear he was not just talking to them but also to himself.

Sarah looked at Chuck and smiled wetly. He leaned in and kissed her. She put her head on his shoulder, on her love's shoulder, and, completely exhausted but feeling safe, she closed her eyes as Roan talked on. Roan was given to speechifying, she remembered, as sleep claimed her.

ooOoo

Archeus looked around the bathroom in the filthy hostel. No one else was awake.

She peeled off her black shirt, the pain making her wheeze, wince. She had a large, darkening bruise across her ribs. She didn't think her ribs were broken, at least she hoped not. But functionally, it didn't matter. The pain was intense. She would need painkillers; luckily, she had some. She needed sleep, but she could not afford much.

Her primary timetable had taken over. She had no choice but to live with the Bartowski's being alive, at least for now. Chuck had the Intersect, clearly. Archeus would have killed him easily, otherwise. She was probably lucky he had not tried to kill her; he probably could have done so.

But she was not going to share anything with Huntaker. Let him think they were dead. She did not want him to pull the plug on the primary mission.

She had to get to DC. The pain would have to be borne. In less than 48 hours, she would do what Huntaker really brought her to the US to do.

She worked to get the rest of her clothes off and she took a brief shower. She put on an old flannel shirt and jeans, pulled her wet hair into a ponytail. The clothes were camouflage; they transformed her into one of the many guests of the hostel.

She took some painkillers and found an empty cot. As she waited for the pain to recede enough to sleep, she thought of Sarah, Sarah _Bartowski_.

 _What would it be like to be in love and to be loved in return?_

Archeus turned the thought this way and that in her mind before she realized what she was doing. Twisting in the cot deliberately, she made her ribs spike pain. She had no time for alien thoughts, weakness.

The pain cleared her mind of almost everything, leaving only two images.

 _Washington, DC. The President._

* * *

 **A/N2** Of course, you knew that was coming. Tune in next time for Chapter 18, "Creation and Re-Creation".

Oh, a shout-out to David Carner and to Grace! Met them in person last week. Wonderful father and daughter.


	19. Chapter 18: Creation and Re-Creation

**A/N1** Welcome to another crescendo in our story. We've had one, back in Chapter 9, now we reach the next.

Likely some of you are frustrated with Sarah (or me (inclusive 'or')) by now. But remember, although we are seventeen chapters into the story, Sarah's had very little time to adjust to her discoveries about her past, particularly her CIA past. Oh, and part of that time she has spent unconscious or understandably preoccupied with other things (Cough! _Archeus._ Cough!).

One of the fascinations of working close-up with the characters is that you get a chance to ride the characters' pulses. But it is easy to lose track of how much time has actually passed when your primary clocks are the 'internal clocks' of the characters, not their wall clock. As the phenomenologists say, lived-time differs from mathematico-physical time, or, as XTC puts it in a memorable lyric: "Clock in my head/clock on the wall/somehow the two of them/don't agree at all."

Thanks for reading and reviewing. Thanks for the PMs.

Don't own _Chuck._

* * *

ACT V

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Creation and Re-Creation

* * *

Huntaker was frustrated, frustrated with a smoldering, galling frustration.

He couldn't get the information, the confirmation, he needed. Archeus told him she was on her way to DC, but she didn't tell him the Bartowski's were dead. He couldn't imagine that she had failed. She was too good; they must be corpses by now. Dead. Maybe she just expected him to infer it from the fact that she was heading to Washington.

But he also was frustrated that Madeline had escaped his grasp.

He'd take the chance, certainly not something he normally would have done, and went to her because he wanted the pleasure of having her once more before the men he sent killed her and destroyed her body. That last mattered; Huntaker did not want any trace of the nature of his relationship to Madeline to be discoverable. He needed his wife by his side, _the gullible cow._ She was an important piece of camouflage. But not only had Madeline escaped, no one knew where she was, no one could find her. Huntaker was unsure how much of his plan she knew, but it was more than anyone other else. He needed her dead. She should be dead. Dead.

Huntaker had done what Archeus asked; he'd steered the search for Sarah Bartowski toward San Diego. And the searchers had found nothing. If Sarah Bartowski and her eternally annoying husband were dead, as they should be, dead, then it didn't matter. But if not? Maybe he should steer the search back to LA? No, he would wait; the Bartowskis must be dead.

Huntaker's final frustration was the Beckman had vanished too, as had the rest of Team Bartowski.

But now was not the time to pull back, even in the face of uncertainty. Now was the time. What did they say? _Go big or go home_. Huntaker was going big. It was almost all in his grasp.

He'd spent years and years deforming the mind of Samuel Gordon, the Vice President, years and years twisting Gordon into the shape he desired, and then years and years pulling strings to get his misbegotten puppet into position. He was in position.

Once the President was dead, Gordon would, of course, take over. And that meant that Huntaker would take over. Huntaker did not care to sit in the Oval Office; he didn't care about titles. He just wanted to control the person who sat in the Office and bore the title. Huntaker wanted the power, just the power. Everything else was dross.

Huntaker had long ago decided that getting his person in the Office via regular means, by running a candidate and chasing votes, was too risky. The better, surer way was to (in this create the perfect political non-zero zero, the perfect vice presidential candidate, rich, handsome, bland. A person no presidential candidate would ever worry about stealing the limelight or being any sort of competition or problem.

When Huntaker met Gordon at the Augusta National Golf Club years ago, he knew he had found his man. Gordon was handsome but not too handsome, bright but not studious or reflective; he was self-centered in a vague, smiling way, and mostly lacked a will of his own.

Huntaker dictated the mind and will of Gordon, and he supplied shaped Gordon's appetites-for sex, for possessions, for drink and drugs. Huntaker had done it all in a way that shielded Gordon from discovery or from collapsing so completely into his vices that he lost his Vice Presidential promise. As a result, Huntaker had enough on Gordon to ensure that if Gordon suddenly grew a pair, a mind and a will, Huntaker could take them in hand and squeeze until Gordon surrendered. Huntaker was a dark wizard at blackmail.

Huntaker had made it happen: he'd contrived to get Gordon into position and the candidate for president took the bait, chose Gordon as a running mate. Won. Now it was time to change the administration. It was time for the Huntaker presidency to begin.

Of course, no one would know, but that was fine. The facts were what mattered, not what people believed.

It wasn't that the office of president had more power than Huntaker, but it had powers Huntaker did not have, and could not scheme to reach, not for sure, not quickly. Huntaker was running out of years. He couldn't wait forever.

He couldn't wait. It was all too close, too near.

Madeline. He'd find her, make sure she died for her betrayal. He'd believe the Bartowskis were dead until he had a reason not to.

It was all so close, so near. It would happen. Soon.

Archeus had planned it. She did not fail. Huntaker didn't either. Not unless Chuck Bartowski and his maddeningly competent wife were involved. But they were dead. Dead.

ooOoo

Chuck gently shook Sarah awake. Roan had parked the car and had already gone inside to find Beckman and the others. Chuck had wanted a moment with Sarah. She had slept peacefully against his shoulder and he had spent his time talking to Roan but looking at her.

She was so precious to him. Would she end up deciding to leave him? He'd worried about that for so long, years, really, and had never gotten over the worry. The last few weeks had only made exacerbated it.

He couldn't make her stay, wouldn't dream of it if he somehow could. He always wanted to be her _choice_. He hadn't tried to convince her to leave Shaw and Beckman and her commitments, he'd just stated his case and made his plea.

Of course, she had left him standing at Union Station, but that had been Shaw's doing; she had been on her way to Chuck. He'd found that out later as they lay exhausted in the hotel bed in Paris and worked out and worked through some of what had happened to them.

ooOoo

Sarah woke up. It was daybreak. Morning. Beginnings. She was in Roan's car. Chuck was carefully, softly shaking her awake, looking at her.

He began to talk in a whisper.

"Sarah, I just want to say one thing, and then I will let you decide whatever it is you have to decide. Here's what I want to say: the past is fixed in one way, and not in another.

You can't change what happened in your past, but you can change what it means, at least within certain limits. You already have. You have changed, and so what your past means has changed too.

"You are not the same person who did those things, but even that person had her excuses for what she did. You are not and you have never been Archeus, no matter what you fear, no matter what she thinks.

"Those excuses matter even more because of what you did for Molly, then what you did for me, and for my family, and what you did when you took the chance to be with me, to tell Beckman that we were really together, to accept my proposal, to become my wife, to start...planning a family.

"You really did all those things, Sarah, they were your choices. Even if you don't remember them, they were. And they show the person you really are, the person you have really always been." He looked deep into her eyes, and she lost herself in his for a moment.

"They were all hard for you, those choices, they required you to go against handlers, rules, your bosses, your own insecurities, your father's and Graham's indoctrinations. I helped you, but _you_ did those things, you did the heavy lifting...

"What yesterday means is partly decided by what you do, or..." he looked even more deeply into her eyes, "...or don't do today, Sarah."

He stopped himself with a visible jerk, determined not to go on. He'd had his say.

She touched his lips just barely with the tips of her fingers. She didn't know what to say, so she let her lips replace her fingers, opening her lips slowly to his. When she pulled back from the kiss, Chuck's eyes, so close to hers, were impossibly full, full of faith, full of hope, full of love, but also full of fear. She did not know how to make the fear go away. She couldn't get clear about herself, about _what_ she was.

She wanted to stay; that was all she could say: "Chuck, I don't want to go. I _want_ to stay."

His eyes stayed fixed on hers, steady, and still full: then he looked away.

After a moment, he looked back. "I get it, Sarah. I've said what I have to say. If you do leave, know that I will be here, and that I will always be here, always be willing to talk or…" he twisted his lips, smiling and frowning simultaneously, "...or not talk, if you want to just _be_. I love you. Not just you-with-me; I love _you_."

He broke Sarah's heart.

Everything he did to keep her made her feel less like she had any right to keep him. He was out of her league, human to a degree she could never be, regardless of what he thought.

She couldn't choose him; it wouldn't be fair.

 _Would it_? _All's fair..._

She wanted to kiss him again. And again. To find some comfortable, flat surface, even as tired and groggy as she was, and to let the kisses take their inevitable course.

But sleeping in the car seemed to have unsettled her stomach. She realized she felt slightly off, nauseated.

They climbed out of the car and she took Chuck's hand. Roan had come back and was holding one of the building's side doors open, gesturing for them to follow him. Ellie (Sarah took it to be Ellie, she looked so much like Chuck and she looked...familiar) appeared beside him, her look of worry transforming into relief as they got nearer and she could see them up-close.

She hugged Chuck and then Sarah. At first, the hug was awkward for Sarah, but then the feeling of the hug came back to her; she fondly remembered other Ellie hugs, always events in her life, evidently.

When Ellie finished the hug, she took Sarah's hand and led her inside. Chuck followed her, and Roan closed the door and brought up the rear.

ooOoo

Chuck's words were in Sarah's mind as the walked through the deserted hallways. Ellie stopped at a door and turned around.

"Look, you both are clearly exhausted. But I need to get started; we don't have lots of time. I am going to examine Sarah. I'm going to get her before Beckman can. While I examine her, Chuck, go and see Casey. He can clean your cuts. When I finish with Sarah, I will look at them too. I think they will just need bandages, given what I can see."

Chuck nodded and he and Roan went on down the hall, Roan now leading the way.

Ellie waited until they were a distance down the hallway before she spoke.

"Are you ok?" She looked at the vestiges of the wounds on Sarah's wrists. "Come on."

The room turned out to be a familiar sort of hospital room, but stuffed with machines. Ellie waved to the bed in the room. "Sit down and take off your clothes, Sarah, so I can get a look at you." Sarah stiffened. Ellie caught herself. "Sorry, I must seem like a stranger…just think of me as your doctor."

Sarah reddened and nodded. "Sorry, Ellie. I do...and I don't know you. That hug...I knew that hug. I'll be ok."

Sarah started to comply, taking off her jacket, when her nausea returned, much worse than before. She ran into the bathroom and vomited. Ellie was quickly behind her, rubbing her back and holding her hair, talking in soothing tones.

After a few minutes, Sarah stood up and flushed the toilet. When she turned, Ellie handed her a washcloth and was looking at her speculatively, the way Chuck had looked at her when she'd been eating the pickles at the In-and-Out. Then it became clear what he had been wondering then, what Ellie was wondering now.

"Oh, God, Ellie," Sarah breathed out, her feeling that Ellie was a stranger suddenly gone, "you don't think…"

"When were you and Chuck last together?" Ellie grinned. "Oh, I don't mean yesterday or anything, but before all this insanity started."

"In Japan, on the Bullet Train."

Ellie smiled a little. "You remember that?"

Sarah nodded. "Yes, but not...clearly. Through a fog. But I know we made love on the train."

"We'll get back to your memory. So, any other signs that you might be pregnant, other than what just happened?"

"Well, that happened yesterday morning too. But Chuck gave me this concoction the night before; it was to neutralize something Quinn made me ingest so I could be tracked…"

Ellie's eyes got big. "The crazy shit that you two...Oh, never mind; I will ask Chuck about...the concoction. But we know my brother. He'd never give you something he thought would harm you in some way. Anything else?"

"An even-stronger-than-normal desire for pickles? But I _like_ pickles. And I've been starving? But I haven't had...time to eat _much_."

Ellie was listening carefully. "Are your breasts sore at all?"

"Um…" Sarah thought for a moment, "yes, I guess so, not bad, I guess. But Quinn's men beat me, so I thought I might...have been hit there…"

Disbelief and concern eclipsed curiosity on Ellie's face. "My God, Sarah!" But then she stymied the sister, became the doctor again, although her eyes showed how much she hated what Sarah had endured, how sorry about it she was. "So, have you missed a period?"

Sarah shook her head. "Well, I haven't had one, but I don't remember…"

"Oh, right. _Shit_. Sorry, Sarah. I forgot that you...don't remember…Look, let's do a blood test. I will take some blood, and then take it upstairs. They have a lab here, it runs 24/7; we could get an answer soon."

Ellie narrowed her eyes and tilted her head, studying Sarah. "But my best guess is that you are pregnant. Don't ask me how I know, I'm not offering it as a medical opinion...yet, but my personal, my...womanly opinion is that you are carrying my niece or nephew. Forgive me, you look bad, but there's an early glow under that exhaustion…"

 _A glow?_

 _Pregnant?_

Sarah sat perfectly still. She had no idea how to react.

 _A baby? Her? A mother? A baby?_

She sat and waited for the panic to rise.

She waited.

She waited.

...

Eventually, tears filled her eyes.

But they were not tears of panic or of fear. They were tears of...joy.

 _A baby. I will be a mother._

She should have been in a full panic, she should have been screaming inside.

But instead, inside there was only one word, deep, quiet, gratified: _Yes_.

 _Chuck's baby. My baby. Our baby. Our family. My family. Mine. Ours._

And then she realized she was not going to leave, that she would never have been able to leave, baby or not. Chuck was her home. To leave him would have been to become homeless. She was not going to leave. She wouldn't have left. She just hadn't lived her way to a consciousness of that yet. But it had been decided long before.

She had lost that contest a long time ago, and the fast-forward replay of it she had been living through the last few days was not going to change the outcome. She loved Chuck. She wanted him. She wanted to be with him.

And she was going to have his child. Chuck was right. She was not Archeus; she'd never been. And she was not who she was before Burbank, and she never would be that person again. She'd made choices; now she was carrying proof of those choices. Joyful proof.

Ellie was watching Sarah's face closely. A smile, slow but eventually huge, took over Sarah's face, and Ellie grabbed her, and she grabbed Ellie, and they hugged each other...hard. Again, the feeling that Ellie was a stranger was gone.

Sarah was giddy. Overwhelmed, a little, a lot, of course. But giddy.

Sarah pulled free and looked seriously at Ellie. "If this is true, I can't have Chuck find out until he and I have a chance to talk. Don't let on, please."

"Doctor-patient confidentiality," Ellie said, making the motion of locking her lips and throwing away the key, then smirking at her own silliness. But Ellie was a little giddy too. They both sat for a moment, taking deep breaths.

Ellie got a syringe, took some blood, and left.

Sarah sat motionless in her underwear, straining to wrap her mind around what had just happened. Lost in thought and feeling, she had no idea how long Ellie had been gone when she returned. As Ellie came in, Sarah hugged herself. Finally, Sarah was bringing her head up to speed with her heart.

"Sorry. I stopped and bandaged Chuck's cuts. They are long but shallow. No stitches necessary.

"We should know something about you soon. I sweet-talked the tech guy in the lab."

Ellie asked for a brief recap of what happened with Archeus. After Sarah talked about the gas that Archeus had used, Ellie called the lab and gave more instructions to the tech guy.

When she finished the call, she looked around the room, then at Sarah, something on her mind. She asked finally, hesitantly. "Sarah, is there any reason to worry that Quinn or his men…"

Sarah shook her head. "No, I'm positive nothing like that happened. No signs. I checked. Um, ah...that was the only...general area where...I wasn't sore when I first woke up. And I know I would have fought them."

Ellie rubbed Sarah's shoulder and nodded. Then Ellie started the exam. It was thorough. Ellie wanted to be sure Sarah was ok.

"Your bruising is healing well. You are, as always, in amazing shape. I don't think your wrists will scar. Exhaustion, a little dehydration. But otherwise fine, I think. You're a little indestructible, you know." Ellie crinkled her eyes. "What's that phrase Chuck likes?" She looked into the distance, trying to remember.

"'Nigh-invulnerability', right," Sarah offered, " _The Tick_ , the big blue guy with antennae and the moth sidekick, 'the funny bunny man'?" Sarah was shaking her head as she spoke, giggling.

Ellie stepped back. Sarah wondered what was wrong. "Is that not right? He made me watch that cartoon with him. He especially likes the one about the boy with the huge brain in the fishbowl thingy...Brainchild? With the robot dog...Skippy, I think?"

Ellie giggled too, now shaking her head. "You remember that?"

Sarah realized she did. She did remember that.

Ellie sat down. "So, let's talk about your memory."

ooOoo

Madeline pulled herself desperately across the cabin floor, leaving a bloody trail. She'd been shot several times. She could hear a new magazine shoved into the pistol behind her.

Her luck had run out. Huntaker's men had caught up with her. She'd played her game. She had lost.

But Huntaker hadn't won. Not yet. That she lost did not mean he won. No. She'd sent an email, a cipher, to Beckman. Maybe Beckman could stop him. Maybe Huntaker would lose too.

That surge of hope was the final thing she ever felt. The gun fired. Madeline collapsed to the floor, her long red and grey hair hiding her face from view.

* * *

 **A/N2** Big chapter. Thanks for sticking with me. Tune in next time for Chapter 19, "Pattern Recognition". We are closing in on the end; as I'm sure you are, I'm ready for it. Just a few more chapters.


	20. Chapter 19: Pattern Recognition

**A/N1** Some dastardly reflections, some sisterly conversation, some Team colloquy...

Thanks for all the reviews and PMs. Writing stories like this is exhausting. I won't deny that a review is a welcome pick-me-up.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

ACT V

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Pattern Recognition

* * *

Huntaker shut down his computer.

Madeline had taken her final breath. She'd died like the betrayer she was, if not exactly as Huntaker would have liked. Her body had been disposed of, no _corpus delicti_ to create complications. Archeus would be in place in DC soon. Everything was working out; the schedule was being kept.

Huntaker took a moment to enjoy himself. Just a smidgen. He knew he had made a mistake with both Madeline and Chuck Bartowski. He had let it become personal. But it didn't matter anymore. Madeline was...encorpsed. Huntaker assumed Bartowski (and his knife-weilding, blond nightmare of a wife) was too. Encorpsed. _Ha! Stop. Be serious, Olin._

Bartowski.

Huntaker had worried about him from the first. A rotting Boy Scout, a do-gooder, oblivious to reality. Huntaker embraced the necessities of _realpolitik_ , one of which was that power gathered into fewer and fewer hands...well, unless there was an elaborate set of checks and balances in place. Huntaker had spent his life undermining and subverting those checks and balances; he _had_ gathered power.

He had used Madeline to play the US intelligence community against itself. That was one reason why he hated the Intersect. It represented an actual coming-together of that community, a chance for it to sort itself out and to overcome the jealousies, the misinformation and the misdirection that characterized it. That chance grew when the Intersect ended up in someone like Bartowski, who actually used the damnable thing for good, instead of to empower himself, as Larkin would have inevitably done, as Shaw did. As any full-of-shit normal spy would have done.

The Intersect transfigured Bartowski into a check-and-balance all by himself, and he frustrated and sometimes stalled Huntaker's gathering of power.

But Huntaker (and Madeline, _curse her mercifully unbeating heart_ ) had not just played the US intelligence agencies against each other, they had also played Fulcrum and eventually the Ring against the agencies, exponentializing suspicion and mistrust and confusion. Huntaker had pocketed almost all of the Ring Elders, but they had not known it about each other, or knew whose pocket they were in. They knew that someone was privy to their secrets and would use the secrets against them.

Well, all but one.

One had an inkling, somehow, that it was Huntaker whose pocket she was in. She had somehow gotten suspicious, and found a slip-up, a loose end, a person _That person is now missing._.. _dead_. She managed to collect information on Huntaker and had, it turned out, fed the information into a Ring database. It ended up, by a bizarre series of translations, in the Ring's Intersect.

But she had not been willing to let anyone else know. She was worried that other Elders might have been colluding with Huntaker against her. _So much welcome dishonor among thieves._ So, she had stored the information in an unnamed file. She did that before Huntaker had been able to put her in an unmarked grave.

Huntaker could not retrieve the file, not without too much risk. Luckily, no Ring intersect had flashed on the information. In particular, Shaw had never flashed on it.

Of course, Shaw was so far gone by the time he got the Intersect, and the Ring's Intersect had consumed so much of the little of him that was left so quickly, it probably wouldn't have mattered if he had flashed on it.

A recent report Huntaker had seen on Shaw said that Shaw'd been reduced to gibbering in a padded cell; no threat to anyone but himself. Huntaker laughed out loud. _Shaw!_

Anyway, the information was buried, and, on its own, it was far from damaging. But it could lead someone to suspect Huntaker's larger purpose.

It might never come to light. But its mere existence made Huntaker _mad_ , in both senses of that term, angry and a smidgen crazy. He hated vulnerabilities, hated them, even merely potential ones.

He had also been worried that somehow Bartowski would figure it all out, discern a pattern that Huntaker had not realized was there, a pattern he'd made inadvertently and could not erase because he did not see it. At a deep level, even a primal level, Bartowski felt like a threat to Huntaker, _the threat_. Bartowski was Huntaker's nemesis, at least that is how it felt to Huntaker, the foe fate threw inevitably into the path of anyone daring enough to dream of power on a truly grand scale.

 _Fate!_ _A grand scale!_ Huntaker realized he was getting a mite giddy.

He needed to remain calm for a little longer. He took a deep breath. Then another.

But Bartowski!

Huntaker had long ago discovered the secret to bearing the pain of your victims. _Don't care._ He didn't. But Bartowski _cared_ , about everything and everybody, seemingly.

A number of the missions Team Bartowski successfully undertook scuttled or damaged plans of Huntaker's, plans for accruing more power. (Or money, but money was always ultimately power.) As Chairman of the Intersect Committee, Huntaker had to sit on his hands and watch it happen, smile, even; otherwise, he would have risked exposure.

Always Bartowski, always Bartowski, always the burning, itching thought of Bartowski. _Psychological hemorrhoid_!

Considered singly, Huntaker hated Bartowski more than the Intersect; but he hated the Intersected Bartowski most, with a perfect hatred, lacking nothing.

Bartowski was a fish hook lodged deep in Huntaker's flesh and every effort Huntaker made to dig him out somehow drove Bartowski deeper still. But when Bartowski last lost the Intersect, _Praise be and Hallelujah!,_ Huntaker began to feel like maybe he was safe.

And now that Bartowski was dead, Huntaker knew he was.

Archeus did not fail. It was all going to happen. The final blow against checks and balances, the replacement of the President with Huntaker's puppet.

Still, still...

A nagging doubt, a small, inflamed, dubious voice that kept him from being able to fully turn his thoughts from Bartowski: _Am I sure he is dead?_

Why hadn't Archeus declared the Bartowskis dead? Why hadn't she talked to him?

Judging from the small signals Archeus let slip, she'd been as intent on killing Sarah Bartowski as Huntaker had Chuck Bartowski. Both wanted _the couple_ dead, but each had a special hatred for one of the two. The other needed to die just because they were so damnably, ably and completely a _unit_ , stronger together.

 _No. No._

He blew out a breath in a blustery sigh. _Just let it go, get over it_. _Bartowski is behind you._ His nemesis, his arch-enemy was dead. The pristine Intersect was destroyed in DARPA. The faulty one was destroyed in Sarah Bartowski.

No more Intersect. No more Bartowski.

A newer, better future was about to materialize.

The Day of the Intersect had ended; the Night of Huntaker was about to begin.

Soon, Huntaker would not even remember Chuck Bartowski.

ooOoo

Sarah went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth. Ellie had been scribbling, evidently organizing her thoughts, her questions. "Let's start with the big question: Do you remember Chuck?"

Just a couple of minutes earlier, Ellie had grabbed a pen and some paper. Then she looked up, remembering something. She had fished a toothbrush, still in the protective wrapping, and a travel-sized tube of toothpaste from her pocket. "Thought you could use these. Got them from a store room upstairs. You can answer in a minute."

Sarah finished and then rejoined Ellie, sitting down. "What do you mean, Ellie? 'Do I remember Chuck'? I have some memories, images, a few on-going bits, like little movies...But I have this conviction, this deep conviction about him, about how I feel about him, about how he feels about me. When he told me I was his wife, I didn't really remember any of that then. But I knew it was true. I knew I was his wife, he was my husband. We…um...in the motel…"

Sarah stopped. Her color rose.

Ellie noticed but pretended not to, even as a smile snuck onto her face. After making a note, she doodled on her pad, giving Sarah a chance to go on.

"Anyway, I feel it, I believe it, but I can't recall it, or much of it, our marriage. I remembered a little of our wedding, our vows, both practice and actual vows. I remember bits and pieces of missions, dating...or cover dating."

"Is there still pain when you remember things about Chuck?"

Sarah's gaze turned introspective and retrospective. "A little, I guess, but nothing like what it was at first. It seems to be going away, in fact, it's disappearing faster than my memory is reappearing."

Ellie made more notes. "A little while ago you remembered _The Tick,_ " Ellie shook her head, "remembered watching it with Chuck. Remembered details of an episode. That memory didn't seem to hurt you; in fact, you didn't even seem to register that you were remembering. You just did it. Has that happened any other time?"

"I don't...Wait. Our hug. And...on the way here, in Roan's car, I fell asleep. As I did, I was thinking, remembering, that he liked making speeches. I just did it, I didn't realize it. But, yes, that was a memory, no pain."

"Good, Sarah, any others?"

"Um...yes! When I was numbed by Archeus. I remembered her. I mean, not her, I've never seen her that I know of. I remembered _hearing about her_. Reading about her. While I was here in Burbank. Oh, oh, I also remembered a bit about when I was in Russia, trying to free your mom from Volkoff."

Sarah wasn't sure what it meant, but it was a pattern of memories without pain, and Ellie seemed to be excited by it. Sarah was getting excited too.

"What's it mean, Ellie?"

"It's a good sign. You can remember, and remember without pain. It suggests to me that your procedural memory, your embodied skills, are beginning to make contact with your representational memory (images, pictures, from your point of view). You seem to be able to remember when you aren't the one asking yourself questions, when you aren't specifically trying to _remember_ , not thinking about what you are doing as remembering.

Ellie tapped her pen on her pad, a small smile on her lips. "That's good. But we need to do some tests. I'll keep asking questions while I run them."

Ellie attached wires to Sarah's head in a colorful array, and hooked the wires to various machines. The machines whirred, chirped and blinked quietly.

Most of the time, she had Sarah talking, telling her about what had happened since she woke up on the dock. But sometimes she had Sarah stop talking to perform other tasks, visual tracking, focusing, reciting the alphabet, counting, pattern recognition, and so on. By the time she finished, Sarah was sure she'd either become a cyborg or been inducted into Mensa.

Talking as she had, Sarah had told Ellie the whole story, minus a few intimate details that had been gestured at, so to speak, but left unrelated.

Afterward, Ellie sat for a long while looking at readouts and the computer screen. Sarah was lost in reflection.

Ellie eventually spoke. "The good news, Sarah, is that I don't see any evidence of any physical problem. The bad news is that none of this tells me anything new about the nature of the memory loss. I have theories, but this data neither confirms nor disconfirms them. I didn't expect there to be major physical trauma, brain trauma, but I was hoping the data might suggest something to me about how best to treat you." Ellie tapped her pen on the counter unconsciously, reflecting.

"I tell you what, Ellie, why don't you tell me some memories, some of your memories of me and of Chuck. It doesn't have to be in order, or big things, just things that stand out. It might help me to hear about myself from you."

Ellie looked at her watch. "We should hear something from upstairs soon. But we have some time to wait yet. Ok. I will tell you some stories, but…" Ellie smiled dangerously, "I warn you. It's all...complicated…."

Ellie focused on the almost three years of unclarity in Sarah's relationship to Chuck. Most of the stories were about the host of mixed signals, hesitations, near-breakups, and actual breakups the two had gone through. Some of the stories were funny, but most struck Sarah as bittersweet, and some as just...sad.

As Ellie talked, Sarah got images, mostly isolated. She did not remember any story Ellie told in its entirety, and most of the stories prompted only an image or two. But some came to her in large part as Ellie narrated.

When Ellie finished, Sarah looked at her earnestly. She finally picked up on what Ellie was doing, the embracing point Ellie was making, by telling her these particular stories.

"You are worried that I might leave Chuck, aren't you, Ellie?"

Ellie met Sarah's gaze and held it. "Full disclosure? Yes. I love you, Sarah, and I'm certain you love my brother. I don't doubt that. But you have a tendency to slip back into being his handler instead of his wife.

"Mostly he defers to you. And I get it. You are an amazing woman. Truly amazing. But tell me the truth. Since Chuck told you about your CIA history, you've been thinking about leaving, right?"

Sarah nodded, looking away from Ellie's gaze. Ellie went on. "Did you discuss that with Chuck?"

Sarah squirmed a little. "Sort of...No. Not really. He...knew. I did tell him, just a little while ago, that I wanted to stay."

Ellie was clearly troubled, hesitant.

"Look, Sarah, I know the last few days have been beyond crazy, and I am not forgetting all you've been through, really, I'm not...You've been forced to process in hours what you had years to process before. I can't imagine it...But...

"But did you ever suggest to Chuck that he really had a say in whether you left or not?"

Sarah looked down at her bare feet. After a few seconds, she shook her head. "But, Ellie, I am not going to leave, I know that now."

"Good. That's so good. But listen, If you know you are his wife, if the feelings are there, Sarah, then _share_ your life with him. Even as it is, gaps and blanks, and regrets and remorse. The hard stuff. I know that's what you want."

Sarah glanced up at Ellie. "We've had this talk before, haven't we?"

"Do you remember?" Ellie asked.

"Yes...No...A definite feeling of...familiarity. Was I worried about this...before?" She looked down again.

Ellie confirmed it. Then Ellie gathered herself: "As hard as it must have been for you to hear the things Chuck told you about yourself, Sarah, do you know how hard it must have been for him to tell you?" Sarah jerked her gaze back up to Ellie. When Chuck told her, she had been so blinded by her shock and misery...

"But he did. This may sound strange, Sarah, but at some level, you know it is true: my brother has never done anything braver in his life than tell you what he told you. He's smart, that brother of mine, he _knew_ (you said so yourself) what was likely to happen if he told you, what the cost would be to him, but he told you anyway, because you asked him to. Because he loved... _loves_...you too much not to tell you, to keep it from you." Ellie's voice was soft.

"But I…I..." Sarah started, stammering.

Ellie's cell phone rang. She listened for a moment. When the call was done, she smiled at Sarah. "The lab tech. You're pregnant. I was right. The blood work is all good otherwise." Sarah lunged at Ellie and squeezed her. There was a high-pitched sound, almost a squeal. It came from Sarah. When she ended it, she leaned back so that she could look Ellie in the eye.

"I need to talk to Chuck, Ellie."

ooOoo

Beckman looked around the room. Chuck had greeted everyone and his injuries had been tended. Chuck, Casey, Carina, Devon, Morgan, and Alex were all squeezed around one small table with her. Roan was standing, she knew, just behind her chair.

Chuck had filled everyone in on what had happened since Sarah had forced Carina out of the car. He didn't dwell on Sarah's memory issues. Everyone knew about them. He didn't repeat any of what he had told Sarah about her past. But he talked about the events, particularly about the confronting Archeus.

Beckman was pleased to know that Archeus was injured but newly frustrated that Huntaker had pushed her so far off the board that she could make very little happen. She got a description from Chuck, the first anyone had ever had on Archeus, and, while Chuck talked, she sent it to friends and contacts in the NSA and CIA and other places, alerting them to Archeus' presence, but also telling them to be careful about sharing the information.

It was all she could do. She had no power. But she had friends, like the people in this room. Roan was with her, and she had yet to greet him as she wanted to, although she had held his hand tightly for a few minutes after they hugged in greeting. He had held her hand tightly in return. It had relaxed her and helped her clear her head.

As Chuck finished his story, Beckman leaned toward him. "So, the new Intersect, how has it been?"

Chuck bit his lip, considering what to say. "Seamless. A little scarily so. I have a hard time telling what it is doing from what I am doing. But it's seamlessness takes time. When I started to fight with Archeus, I knew I had it, and that it was working, but...well, it is hard to describe…"

During Chuck's pause, Ellie and Sarah came into the room. Beckman smiled and nodded at Sarah, but Chuck was trying so hard to describe the Intersect's functioning, he didn't notice their entrance or Beckman's response.

"...I kept expecting a flash of skills or something, but nothing like that happened. I started to fight and I was fighting, against Archeus no less (and by the way, she's crazy, but she is...um...legitimately deadly) and at first, I was only able to hold my own. But as the fight went on, I...improved...I started to be one beat, then two beats, ahead of her. She knew it; she felt it. Of course, she was also tiring, but I wasn't, not really, and she could tell that too. The whole fight seemed to slow down to me, the way pro quarterbacks say that plays slow down for them over time...Anyway, I finally landed a serious blow. She was sure then that I had the Intersect; I could see it on her face. She ran."

"Does that all sound right to you, Sarah?" Beckman asked. Everyone turned, and Chuck leaped out of his chair, knocking it over in his hurry to reach her, take her hand. His relief at seeing her was palpable. He looked at Ellie and she mouthed, "She's ok." Sarah smiled at Chuck, then answered Beckman.

"I was still fighting the effects of the gas, and the fight was so fast, and so furious, that I couldn't pick up on all the details. But everything Chuck said fits with what I did pick up on. I wouldn't be in any hurry to face her."

"Well, Chuck, as Dr. Smith may have told you," Beckman's voice thickened at the woman's name, and Chuck and Carina exchanged a glance, "this Intersect takes time to settle in. The combat skills in it take time; it adjusts to the person.

"The lag you felt, then the acceleration, was due to that, I believe. In the ideal case, the person with the Intersect would have time to train, to spar and so on, before facing any real threat, before going 'live'. Your performance with it will continue to improve, if you continue to use it."

Beckman noticed as she talked that Sarah locked eyes with Carina. They stared at each other for a moment and then Sarah dropped her chin, lifted it. Carina nodded. Apology offered and accepted. Carina then gestured at her hair as a way of gesturing at Sarah's short red hair, and she put her finger in her mouth, like she was gagging herself. Sarah shrugged.

Beckman refocused. "Since we are all here, we need to face our problem and come up with a plan. A few minutes ago I got an email from Madeline Upshaw. She was an old friend of mine. I won't go into details, some of you know them," she heard Roan clear his throat, "but let's just say she was a spy. She was tied to the person I believe is behind all of this, Senator Olin Huntaker." Beckman stole a glance at Sarah but she did not react to the name. Of course, the faulty Intersect was still suppressed. Still, something might have happened. "Madeline's message had two parts. The first was almost unbelievable, if it weren't for the last few days, the second I still don't understand.

"Let me start with the second Madeline instructed me to call a lawyer's office and to give them a password and a number. I don't know what that will do, but I am convinced that she has been trying to help us, me, against Huntaker, and, after talking with Roan, I decided to trust that. I made the call. I have no idea what the effect will be. I made that choice; I hope I was right." She felt Roan's hand on her shoulder.

"The first was a brief statement. 'Huntaker plans to use Archeus to assassinate an important government figure; I believe it will be the President'."

The room fell absolutely silent.

And then everyone started talking at once. Beckman, with a sonic boom of a grunt from Casey as an aid, got everyone to settle down.

"I believe what Madeline believes. Archeus was, probably still is, here in LA, but she has not operated in the US before, and I don't believe she was brought here primarily to kill Chuck and Sarah. I suspect Huntaker brought her here for one thing, then decided to put her to other uses, really get his money's worth," Beckman smiled grimly, completely without humor. "I am willing to bet that Archeus killed Quinn and his men and that although Sarah's fingerprints were found in the rubble at DARPA, it is Archeus' fingerprints that belong there. Huntaker wanted the Intersect finished. We beat him to it. I have no idea if Archeus had told him that, but we will have to assume that she has.

It seems likely too that the timetable for the assassination has is underway. That may have been a contributing reason for Archeus running. She was saving herself for the bigger game."

Carina piped up. "Why would Archeus agree to that hit? The President? It's a damned suicide mission."

Sarah knew the answer and gave it. "Fame. She believes she is destined, 'damned' might be the better word, for great things, to be this...great assassin. She'd be willing to die if she thought she could pull it off. I have no doubt. 'Death is your gift. And mine'."

"What, Sarah?" Beckman asked, since Sarah added the last phrase so quietly. Beckman saw Chuck squeeze Sarah's hand. "Nothing, General. Just thinking...about Archeus." Then Beckman saw Sarah return the squeeze, and smile warmly, reassuringly, at her husband.

Beckman nodded and Casey spoke. "But why would _Huntaker_ assassinate the President. How does it help him?"

"That's a question we need to try to answer. If we can, we can be sure the President is the target. And Madeline helped with that question too, but not in her email, in a pound-cake conversation we had before I came here. I think the answer to why Huntaker is doing this is in Sarah's Intersect." Beckman told the story, connecting it to the article about the search for Rebecca Franco.

Chuck was clearly getting upset. "But wait, General, to go hunting for the answer in Sarah's Intersect. That's dangerous!"

Ellie joined her brother. "It is. Sarah's starting to remember on her own. I don't know if it will take her to full recovery, but it's more than I hoped for. I believe that if I can take the Intersect from her, without further flashing, she will, eventually, recover most, if not all of her memories.

"But if she flashes again, well, nothing bad may happen, and we may just be where we are right now. Or the worst might happen, and the Intersect could reclaim, maybe even destroy, Sarah's memories, do serious cognitive harm…Do we have to do this, Diane, does Sarah have to flash again? I mean, do we even know what she should flash _on_?"

Beckman shook her head. "No, but now that I have Chuck here to help Morgan, I hope we can get an idea."

Chuck looked at Sarah, a question in his eyes and fear etched on his face. Beckman glanced from him to Sarah. Sarah still had Chuck's hand.

She turned to Beckman. "I need to talk to my husband." Beckman nodded, and the two of them left the room.

Beckman felt Roan's hands settle on her shoulders, kneading them gently. Her exhaustion was still with her, and the adrenaline spike of Chuck and Sarah's return, and Roan's, was wearing off.

She put one of her hands up on top of one of Roan's, and felt the warmth there. She was tired...and tired of asking people to face such dangers, to make such sacrifices.

 _Maybe_ , she thought, thought itself now tiring her, _if she ever got her job back, she would quit_.

* * *

 **A/N2** The dreaded 'we need to talk'? Maybe, this time, not. Tune in next time for Chapter 20 "Rough-Hewn Our Ends". Until then, be well, and take pity on this poor scribe, and write a few words for me to read.


	21. Chapter 20: Rough-Hewn Our Ends

**A/N1** We're down to three or four chapters to go, depending on how I break the material up.

I really do appreciate those of you who have been reading this and those who have reviewed it and PM-ed me. _Thank you!_ I knew when I wrote the first sentence of this story that it would, for a while, be dark and difficult.

In fact, you could say that the first sentence announced how the story was going to go. At least, that was part of its intended job. (The tradition in antiquity was that Plato fussed constantly, "combed and curled", his dialogues, writing and re-writing them throughout his life, but that he spent enormous effort, in particular, constructing the first sentence of each, trying to find a way to distill the theme of the dialogue into a single sentence. I've always liked that idea.)

I know that sticking with the story has been hard for some of you. Sorry about that.

Trust that I don't write angst for its own sake. I have no such _sado-nihilistic_ streak (forgive the ugly neologism). I thought there was a story here, one worth the telling, and one that ultimately would come back into contact with what I take to be the core values and the common vectors of the show. (It's worth remembering that the show's own finale was dark. Table for three, for Sarah and Ellie and Sarah's gun, anyone? The finale's darkness is one reason, I think (not by any means the only one), for the animus against it: it never quite redeemed its darkness; it got to the edge of doing so then faded to black.) I hope to redeem the darkness of my story; you will have to be the judge of that.

Oh, well, enough said, I guess. As you know, I'm not normally one for talky A/Ns.

One last thing: some temporal shifts coming in the chapter, the present of the story framing its immediate past.

As always, don't own _Chuck._

* * *

ACT V

CHAPTER TWENTY

Rough-Hewn Our Ends

* * *

 _The Present_

"Ready for takeoff…" The metallic voice sounded in the cargo hold, as if in imitation of a Cylon on the (original) _Battlestar Galactica_. Chuck was sitting one of the uncomfortable, fold-out seats provided in case of passengers.

The way it had squeaked when he unfolded it was proof that passengers were infrequent. And no wonder. This was _not_ flying the friendly skies. The seat had undoubtedly been designed by Torquemada, but then rejected by him as too painful. But the plane, and the seats, they were the best Beckman's Air Force friend had been able to do. Chuck and Sarah were flying almost as stowaways, really, not so much as passengers. Beckman had worked to make sure there was no indication that Chuck and Sarah were on the plane. She wanted no one to know they were on their way to DC.

Sarah was cocooned in the blanket Chuck had found for her, fast asleep, gone, immediately after he'd covered her. She was exhausted. He was too, but excitement and dread had him still awake, still staring, albeit out-of-focus, at the insides of the old-but-serviceable plane.

* * *

 _Earlier that day_

Sarah kept his hand in hers as she took him away from the Team. When they reached the same room that Ellie examined Sarah in earlier, Sarah opened the door and led Chuck inside.

His stomach was knotted. What Beckman was prepared to ask of Sarah, of him!

He was sure Sarah was going to tell him that she was going to do it. _Flash_.

 _Risk it all_. Again.

He was just now, maybe, sort of, kind of getting her back. Winning her, getting her back: he spent more time doing that than he did having her.

His vanishing girl.

He'd do it all again, and he'd do it all yet again; she was his _everything_. But he was tired, so worried that she would leave when all of this was over.

Eventually, she'd be gone for good.

He'd be alone.

 _Alone in Burbank_.

 _Alone in life_.

ooOoo

Sarah turned to Chuck, hardly able to look into his eyes.

Ellie had been right. Sarah had been right in the conversations with Ellie before all this happened.

This man was her _husband_ , not her asset, and it was time for her to finally get clear about that and to make that clear to him. He wouldn't meet her eyes, and she realized finally what he probably expected her to say, that she was going to flash again, risk it all, risk them.

She could see the spiral in his eyes, in the sagging slump of his shoulders. She needed to make it stop.

But as she started, she found herself unable to say it straight out. Finally, she managed to blurt something: "Chuck, I'm sorry I ate both the croissants…"

His eyes stopped spiraling long enough become dual question marks. He made a barely intelligible, _huh?_ -ish sound.

"...I'm sorry too about the In-and-Out, eating all those pickles…" Shaking his head, Chuck did a double-take. Another _huh?_ -ish sound. But, then, surprise, a hint of suspicion. Chuck's eyes brightened and she saw the thought he'd had at the restaurant revisit him. His shoulders rose. But, then, the thought left. Sag.

She still held his hand. "Chuck, I love you. I am not leaving. I finally got clear about that. I am _never_ leaving. I am yours for life." There. She said it. The first part, anyway.

She saw the ends of his mouth lift, his lips start to curl, and she discovered that her heart was pounding against her chest, desperate to escape its confinement...

 _Your heart is my heart...My heart is your heart…_

 _Her 'C', her Chuck. The father of her child._

"Chuck, Ellie found out, a few minutes ago...um, during the exam. She….You...I….You are going to be a father!" There. _I love you so much, Chuck._ She told him. There was a supernova in her chest, her smile broadcast its light.

Chuck became a statue of himself. The color drained from his face, making him look unreal, waxen. He did not move. He wasn't even breathing. Sarah started to laugh, then she started to panic.

"Chuck? Chuck!" He did not move. She started to reach for him: he moved: his hand wrapped around hers, squeezing, but so gently it was almost indiscernible.

"Sarah?" His eyes were magically full of tears. But none had yet escaped; they hung wet and heavy but still unshed. His gaze had shifted to the past.

"I'm sorry, Sarah. We shouldn't have, I mean, on the Bullet Train, without being careful about everything, _protection_ …And now, now in the middle of all this...I'm so sorry." She could hear the effort in his voice, the wild clash of emotions he was trying to control.

She grabbed him, kissed him, kissed him not just with her lips but with all of her, top to bottom, side to side, and beginning to end. And during the kiss, she felt him begin to understand. He kissed her back, all of him, all, now responsive to all of her. When he pulled softly away, she could feel her cheeks wet with his tears and see that his cheeks were too.

"You're going to be a... _mother_?" She bit her lip as she nodded excitedly. She could feel the color in her cheeks, even the flash of her eyes. "And...and...you're ok with it?" Chuck was coloring again in response.

"More than _ok_ , Chuck. _Happy_ , really _happy_." She pulled him to her, holding him close as she laughed aloud, unable to contain herself. She bounced on her feet. "I know it's a crazy time to find out. But I don't have to remember everything to know we've never done anything on a timetable that made sense, have we?"

It took Chuck a second to parse that, but then he shook his head, his whole body beginning to smile. "No...no...we're always too fast or always too slow."

She could tell that he still hadn't quite gotten himself around it. But he was getting there. And then tears began for both of them. And they cried together, and on each other (her on him too, this time), and for the sheer joy of it.

ooOoo

It took them a few minutes to recover enough to talk. Sarah made herself start again. She wanted just to talk about the baby, but they would have to wait on that, maybe for a while. There were other things she needed to talk about. She was done postponing.

She got him to look her in the eye. "Chuck, even in this situation, even with my memory...faulty...I shouldn't have been deciding, unilaterally, that I was going to leave, or that I couldn't stay, or...or whatever. Especially not after...well, after I knew I was..and after I had been...your _wife_ again." She grinned for a moment. "More than once." She tamped the grin down; she became serious again. Carefully, she reached out and put her palm lightly against Chuck's jaw.

"You have a say in what I do, Chuck, of course, you do, and I should have talked to you. From what I remember of before, and from what's happened the last couple of days, and from what Ellie made a point of telling me...I keep letting the fact that I am ashamed or afraid or hurting send me into...mission mode.

"And that's bad, because our life is not a mission, and because when I go into mission mode, I treat you like my asset. But you have never been my asset, Chuck, not even when you _technically_ were..." Sarah caressed Chuck's jaw and her voice grew quiet.

"You know, when Archeus was talking to me, she berated me for falling for you, and particularly for marrying you, she made fun of the very idea of a husband. And my thought was: _you don't know_ _my husband_. But too often, Chuck, I act like _I don't know my husband_ , and I'm sorry for that…I know how amazing you are, how gifted, and how good.

"But too often I still make you feel...well, sort of like I made you feel before I left to rescue your mom, or sort of like I did before the Belgian took you. Sometimes, when I've asked you to trust me, I've done it to keep from having a discussion or from sharing with you.

"That's backwards, Chuck, I know that. It makes sense with an asset, not with the man I love. All I can say in my defense is that I do love you, but I am still learning how to be good at that. I...uh...it may take me a little longer than a normal girl..."

Sarah stopped and looked vulnerably into Chuck's eyes. He stifled a smile and reached up to place his hand atop hers, still on his jaw.

"We're both still learning, Sarah.

"And, for the record, although I always have wondered about your past, I meant it long ago when I told you I knew you, that I didn't need to know your past. But I also realized eventually that _you_ needed to tell _me_ , needed me to know..."

His tone shifted, became a quiet question, a question laced with his newly-freed smile. "And you remember that conversation in the cell after France, you remember the Belgian?"

"Not perfectly, but...enough. Enough to wish I had handled both moments in a different way. I'll do better. Trust me, Chuck." She smiled at that. He did too.

She went on. "So, about this flashing that Beckman wants me to do? What do you think we should do?" She saw him blink happily at the 'we' and then watched worry reclaim his gaze.

"Wait. Let's wait. Let's talk some more with Beckman and let me see what I can figure out. We don't have much time, I know, but with all of us, with Morgan to help me and Carina and Casey to help you, maybe we can figure this out without having to restart your faulty Intersect. I...I can't keep losing you, Sarah. I'm going to keep you from flashing again, if I possibly can."

She smiled and nodded. "I admit. I'd rather not. I'm happy to leave the flashing to you." Her ambiguous smile made him wonder if that had been a pun. He laughed, leaned down and kissed her, and then he pulled her into a tight embrace. Chuck held his wife.

ooOoo

Chuck and Sarah walked hand-in-hand back into the main room. Morgan had gone back to a computer and Alex was beside him, reading dates and addresses to him. Roan and Beckman were sitting at the central table, talking in low tones.

Ellie and Devon were back at work, off to one side, talking about the procedure for removing or restarting the Intersect, depending on what happened. Casey was seated on a stool next to the two of them with a look on his face that declared what they were talking about both incomprehensible to him and of undoubted importance.

Carina was MIA.

Ellie looked up at Chuck as he and Sarah came in, and she gave him a smile brimming so with happiness that he stumbled for a moment and almost fell. He was lucky Ellie was in his life.

Devon seemed puzzled when he noticed Ellie's smile. But it made sense that Ellie would wait and not tell him, or anyone. It was still very early in the pregnancy, and it was Sarah's news, and Chuck's, to share. He smiled back at Ellie. He wanted to run to her, hug her. Jump up and down. Later. When they could find a moment. For now, the smiles would have to do.

Chuck hurried a couple of steps toward the center table, beating Sarah there. He pulled out the chair for her. She smirked at him, amused, and sat down. He sat beside her. She rested her hand on his leg underneath the table.

Chuck turned to Beckman. "General, tell me about Olin Huntaker, everything you can, especially as it relates to me, Sarah and the Intersect. By the way, I have flashed on him, but he is barely present in my Intersect."

Although he hadn't noticed it before, Chuck could see the exhaustion in Beckman's eyes and in her bearing. She had to summon the will to answer.

"Well, Chuck, although I've known Huntaker for a long time, I realize now that I have never really thought about him, never _known_ him. I've always thought about him in a certain role, most often as the Chair of the Intersect Committee, and not really about the man himself. I'm beginning to see that he wanted it that way, that he has managed that kind of thing his entire career. Never in the limelight, always taken to be a serious guy, a hardass, but not unreasonable. _An apparatchik_. The perfect DC camouflage. Everyone, including me, thought of him as good at this, good at that, as if that meant he was _good_ , period. I now believe Olin Huntaker is a carefully contrived series of masks, and that no one has seen his real face. He may be better at disguise than Archeus..."

She went on briefly to talk about the Committee and Huntaker's dislike of the Intersect. In those meetings, Huntaker always made his dislike sound as if it were caused by the Intersect's expense, unpredictability and its ability to attract villains.

Chuck listened, looking at Sarah from time to time, fighting back a silly grin each time he did, and fighting back a desire to grab her hand and dance with her, despite the necessity for and gravity of the conversation. _A family!_

Beckman went on and Chuck marshaled his concentration. But then Beckman said something Chuck had never heard before, about someone he would like to forget.

"Wait, General. Just a sec. You say _Shaw_ was Huntaker's idea?" Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sarah look at him and then look down. He felt her squeeze his leg.

"Yes, yes, that's how Shaw came to my attention." She gave Chuck a speculative look. "I hadn't really thought about that…"

Chuck's mind began to race. He couldn't tell if his thoughts were all his own or Intersect-aided, but they cycled through his history with the Intersect and they shaped themselves into a pattern, a pattern that culminated in Decker's dry voice, going on about a conspiracy.

 _Decker! Conspiracy!_

It avalanched onto Chuck: the content of what Decker said was not quite true, but the form was. Decker told a lie he kept close to the truth. Decker had known about Huntaker, probably even worked for him. Like Quinn. _Huntaker is not the best judge of henchmen, evidently._ Huntaker had been working against Team Bartowski even as he Chaired the Intersect Committee. Chuck knew he had no proof of it, but the conclusion struck him as overwhelming and undeniable.

He quickly told Beckman and Sarah and Roan what he thought. He heard Sarah gasp softly at the thought that so much of what had happened to them could be traced back, in one way or another to Huntaker. As he narrated the events, arranging them into the pattern he saw, the conviction grew on Beckman's face.

"Shit," Beckman said.

She started to stand, then decided to stay seated, but her agitation was apparent. "I've been played for a fool six ways from Sunday. He sat at that conference table and smiled at me while he and Madeline manipulated me, manipulated the Team. It's a good thing, Chuck, and _I never thought I would say this_ , that you are so damned insubordinate, outside-the-box. Who knows what he might have done to the Team or used the Team to do if he could have controlled or even predicted you." And then she looked at Sarah. "Or you, Sarah. You too. You two have no doubt been the white whale to his Ahab."

"Ok, so let's assume that I am right," Chuck jumped in, "and Huntaker wants us finally out of the way so that he can make his big play, assassinate the President. Whatever is in Sarah's Intersect must be connected to that. Maybe we _can_ figure all this out without a flash…"

He turned to his wife. "Sarah, we know this has to happen soon. Everything suggests Huntaker's urgency. So, can you and…." He looked for Carina but she was still gone, "Carina, when she gets back, and Casey, can you consider the President's itinerary for the next couple of days? Think about it like...an assassin…." his tone was careful and he watched Sarah's face closely but other than a blink, her expression didn't change, so he went on…"Think about it like Archeus. Where will she try to do it? How?"

"General Beckman, you and Roan can help Morgan and Alex and I try to figure out why Huntaker wants the President dead. This isn't a terrorist act, even if Huntaker hopes everything will hope so, it is going to benefit him."

ooOoo

Just before Chuck and Sarah returned from their talk, Carina's phone blinked. She had a text from Al. She hurried from the room and went back upstairs, outside, to where she'd been when she talked to him before.

The text said, simply, "Please call me asap."

"Hi, Al?"

"Carina." Al sounded spent but also anxious, worried. He said her name like a sigh, obviously anxious and worried about her, although he did not know any of the details of her current situation. But it turned out he knew something else that partly explained his heightened anxiety and worry.

"Carina, Madeline Upshaw is dead, I believe."

That was not what Carina had expected to hear. "Dead, Al? You _believe_ she's dead? What do you mean?"

Al took a deep breath; he had a tale to tell, clearly. "I went to her apartment, like you asked, and was careful, as you told me to be. I knocked. No answer. It...turned out the door was...unlocked. The place was a wreck. It had been searched; anyway it looked the way that searched places always look on tv. She was gone.

"I thought that would be the end of it, and I was going to call you, when it occurred to me to check with the manager, to see if they might have security tapes. It turns out they do, but right now they have only one camera and it's trained on one of the parking garage exits. They're hoping to have more installed soon, he told me." Carina could hear a shrug in Al's voice. "Madeline's car was still in the garage. But I thought, _what the hell_ , so I had him replay the tape for the past several hours. A minivan left and I was sure that Madeline was driving it, although her face was obscured by her hat. That actually made me more sure, not less, I admit." _Smart man_ , Carina thought.

"I got the license number of the van and I had a buddy of mine in law enforcement, I'll leave his name out of this, put out the word to keep watch for the van. Nothing formal or high-profile, just let him know. Someone saw the van at a set of cabins near DC, but across in West Virginia. That's where I am, at the cabins. By the time I got here, the van was gone and the cabin it had been parked in front of was ablaze."

"A little while later, a hiker called 911. She'd found the van, peeked in an open window, and thought it looked and smelled like there was blood inside. There was. I don't know for sure, tests aren't back yet, people are searching the woods, but my gut tells me it was Madeline, that she's dead. My gut is normally right, unfortunately." There was a long pause. "Carina, what's going on? Can you tell me? This feels...big. And folks here are beginning to wonder about my interest in all this..."

"Not yet, Al, but I will, soon. As much as I can, anyway. Sit tight. Let me know when you know something more."

"I will." There was another long pause. Al's voice broke as he started again, like he was a teenager. "Carina, can I ask you something, something personal?"

She started toward her default, started to deflect. But then she thought again. Her stomach twisting slightly, she responded: "Um, sure, Al. What is it?"

"Is there an... _us_? Because I kind of feel like there is, and I kind of feel like there isn't. But I know I would.. _.like_...there to be."

Carina thought about Al in the apartment, in her bed. She wanted him there, no one else. But she had been in other beds, with other men, since first sleeping with Al. Still, none had changed who she wanted in her bed.

She found she couldn't really remember any of their faces, the faces of those other men, or any of the rest of any of them, really, either. They had entered and exited without taking on any personal identity, like extras in a movie. That wasn't fair to them, even if they were willing, and it wasn't fair to her, even if she was willing. That you were willing or chose something didn't make it right, fair. And setting aside questions of fairness, it wasn't what she wanted anymore. She wasn't really willing, wasn't really choosing. She was doing it out of...inertia.

Al cleared his throat. She'd not said anything for a while. "It's ok. I understand. Not the right time to ask…I'm not on the top of my game. I'm a little wrung out."

"No, no, Al, I was going to say that I'd like to talk about this, about us, when I get back to DC." Carina felt her hands shaking, her throat tightening. She couldn't tell if it was fear or excitement. It was her turn to wait through a silence.

Al finally responded, his voice more raspy than usual. "Oh! Oh! Great! Um, um...good...that's really good. I mean...that's good."

They talked for a little while longer, but mainly because neither knew quite how to end the conversation, given what had just been said.

They managed to end the call finally. Awkwardly. Carina blew out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. _A serious talk with a man_. It had been a long time since Carina could remember a first with a man, but that would be one.

ooOoo

Carina shared the information from Al, the information about Madeline, when she went back inside and downstairs. The atmosphere of urgency increased, darkened. Carina saw Beckman looked up at her as she spoke, and then back down. It was clear Beckman was unsure exactly how to take the news. She blinked a couple of times, her face long, and then looked back down at the pages in front of her.

A long, tense silence took over the room after that. Everyone was working.

Chuck broke the silence after a while. He stood up from the computer. Morgan rolled his chair back but remained seated. Everyone turned to them. "Huntaker is good, I will give him that. I couldn't establish any connection between him and any anti-US groups, any groups of interest. Anyone, suggestions?" he implored.

Sarah stood up, after a nod from Casey. "Maybe we don't know _why_ , but I think we know where. Tomorrow the President is scheduled to speak at a luncheon at this hotel." Casey punched a button. "The Excelsior." A picture of the hotel appeared on the screen behind Sarah.

"When I was on the Presidential protection detail, back some years ago, the Excelsior was a 'no-fly zone', meaning that the Secret Service did not think it was possible adequately to protect the President there, specifically at the entrances. There are clear sight lines from rooftops of surrounding buildings to the entrances. It's a security nightmare. I'm surprised he's going to speak there."

"I'm not," Beckman added. "This President is determined to make no concession to terror. He's driving the Secret Service crazy. He insists that a President should be 'visible'. So, he's routinely gone places they'd rather he didn't go, exposed himself in venues they judge that he shouldn't…They've managed to keep him from talking about it, but not from doing it."

Chuck interrupted. "Wait, Sarah, you remember your Secret Service time?"

She nodded with a complicated smile. "Yeah, I guess so. I didn't even think about it. I was just thinking about Archeus, and I guess it came back to me..." She shook her head and continued.

"If I were Archeus," Sarah closed her eyes momentarily, frowned visibly at her own choice of words, "I would find a way to get on the top of one of these buildings. I would use a sniper rifle. Headshot. Casey agrees." Casey nodded and grunted.

"As skilled as she is at hand-to-hand combat, a direct attack would be unlikely to succeed, especially since she is injured. Her best chance for success, and for escape, if she hopes to escape, is to take a shot from one of the buildings."

"Can you figure out which one?" Beckman asked, excitedly.

Sarah's expression became pinched. "Not for sure, not from here. I need to be there, on the scene. And I have seen her. I might get lucky and spot her. Chuck has seen her too. We need to get there. _Both of us_. Together."

Carina saw Chuck look at Sarah, and saw Sarah nod at him reassuringly.

Beckman picked up her phone. "I will see what I can do. Maybe Madeline will end up stopping Huntaker after all. After I get you two a ride, I will put in a call to the White House. I don't know if anyone will listen, given Huntaker's effort to throw me in the shade, but I have to try."

Carina was puzzled. "But wait. Is the President the only one who will be there tomorrow? I mean, will any other government official be with him? Even if we are sure that's _where_ ," she pointed at the screen, "are we sure about the _who_? Are we sure it is the President that Archeus is targeting? Is that other guy going to be with him, you know, what's his name, the Vice President? I never can...remember his name."

Sarah shook her head. Chuck stiffened. "Of course. _Of course!_ We don't need Sarah to flash. Huntaker and the Vice President. Huntaker wouldn't openly grab power. No, he'd find a way to get it without anyone knowing. He'd cultivate a nobody, but the nobody _next in line_! We now know what is going on. We need to stop it, later we can figure out how to prove it, if that's still necessary. There will be a link from Huntaker to the Vice President. Links. Puppet strings."

* * *

 _The Present_

Sarah was still sleeping soundly. One of her hands was outside the blanket and Chuck took it in one of his, careful not to disturb her. Through the take-off and early turbulence, Sarah slept.

Ellie would try to remove the faulty Intersect when they got back. And she would keep their other secret. Maybe, if they survived this, and if Ellie's procedure worked, they could finally settle their accounts with the past, and turn toward their future.

The present was certainly complicated enough. Being on the plane proved that. Chuck had and hadn't wanted Sarah to come. But she was not going to let him go without her. He got that. They'd talked. She'd promised to stay out of the action. " _An advisory capacity."_ A strange sort of role reversal for them.

Chuck wondered if he'd get a chance to tell her to stay in the car.

He laughed to himself. Not really a good idea to bait Sarah anytime, but particularly not when she was awash in hormones.

Still chuckling, Chuck drifted into sleep too. As Sarah had told him many times on missions: sleep is a weapon.

ooOoo

Archeus woke up. It was still dark; she liked it that way. It was going to be a big day. A great day. Before it was over, she would prove to the world that she was the deadliest woman on the planet.

* * *

 **A/N2** There is no Excelsior Hotel in Washington, at least so far as I know. Tune in next time for Chapter 21 "Raising the Dead?".

If you weren't reading WvonB's Third Arc story, rectify that. Go back, start at the very beginning, though, if you have time, and read both the other arcs first, so that the full effect of the Third can be enjoyed.

Halfachance's canto to convection baking and to slow-burning romance, "May Your Walls Know Joy", will delight you.

David Carner's cotton-candy machine is in overdrive, producing billowy clouds of spun sugar in every color of the pastel rainbow.

Lots of goodies on the site these days.


	22. Chapter 21: Raising the Dead?

**A/N1** So, two chapters to go, one to end the story proper and then one as a coda. Thanks for reading. Thanks for reviewing. Thanks for PMing. Just _thanks!_ If you've been reading and haven't left a review, how about at least one here at the end?

I got this idea at my local pizza shop, talking to my wife. I read Ludlum's _The Bourne Identity_ while a boy, seated in a metal chair leaned against a wall of the barn. I re-read the book several times during my boyhood. It became a definitive spy novel for me. _Chuck_ , of course, is a definitive tv show.

Eating with my wife, a particular passage in Ludlum's novel came spontaneously to mind, tying the code name for the amnesiac Bourne ('Cain') to the letter 'C', and 'C' to the name 'Carlos' and thus to (in English) 'Charlie': and I thought of Charlie, Chuck, Charles Bartowski, and I looked at my wife, and said, "Ok. I will write another story." And thus, _this._

I hope you've enjoyed and are enjoying it.

Don't own _Chuck_ (or, inspired by halfachance) the letter 'C', sniper scopes or moving vans or pocket protectors. Well, um, I do own a pocket protector.

* * *

ACT V

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Raising the Dead?

* * *

Sarah was perched on a stool near the large wall of windows at the NoSlumber Coffee Shop, just up the street from The Excelsior Hotel. She had a knit cap pulled down on her head, brown, and it almost hid her chopped red hair from view. She had on a tan leather jacket, zipped, well worn, and ill-fitting, a size or two too big. They'd bought both the cap and jacket at an Army/Navy surplus. With her large dark-rimmed glasses on too, she did not look like Sarah Bartowski or like Rebecca Franco. The stool allowed her to see up and down the street, and she was looking around apparently casually, but in reality, intently.

Chuck was at the counter, getting them coffees, one decaf, one regular, and a couple of the croissants Sarah had seen and actually drooled over as she passed the counter. She cast a glance at him, hoping he'd add to the order since both croissants belonged to her.

They were taking a chance even being there, but they had to be. They had to see Archeus, had to figure out where she was going to position herself, but they had to do it while the street teemed with Secret Service personnel and others there to guard the President. The fact that the streets were teeming with such people meant that she and Chuck had foregone carrying weapons, other than the knives strapped to her calf and the Intersect bolted to Chuck's mind.

The President's motorcade was due to arrive in a little more than half an hour. It was time: if Archeus was going to do this, she had to make a move soon.

Sarah could feel Chuck's eyes on her from the counter; she nodded to him and shrugged. _Nothing yet._

ooOoo

It was still early, but Olin Huntaker had poured himself a scotch, from the prized bottle he kept for special occasions. He was sitting in his study, the tv on, watching news coverage, waiting for the President to arrive. His wife, Janice, came into the room. She was a tall woman, her figure in late middle age had rounded and plumped, but nevertheless, the North Carolina beauty queen she had been when she was younger was still detectable in her graceful, upright bearing and her handsome features.

Huntaker grimaced. Janice was the most annoying piece of furniture in his stately home, and once today ended, he'd begin the process of extricating his life from hers. Huntaker had long ago lost the energy even to hate her. He now felt only a barren contempt for her. The simple facts that she had aged, and that she was a genuinely sweet woman, were more than enough for Huntaker to find her useless, except as part of the life he carefully presented to those who knew him in DC. There were so many other women, younger or...more willing to satisfy his lusts...And soon there would be more. Huntaker wasn't sure if he meant more lusts or more women, but either or both would do. He leered to himself.

He settled onto the couch, registering that Janice had spoken to him but not expending the effort to understand what she had said. He sipped his scotch. If he said nothing, she'd soon leave, and then he could watch his masterwork unfold.

 _Today._

 _At last._

ooOoo

Janice waited for Olin to answer her question about the dinner party they were to attend that night. As usual, he ignored her, her question, her.

It had been months since he had so much as touched her, and years since he had touched her with desire. Her life had become an empty rotation of duties, each required but meaningless, like her breathing. She looked at Olin's stony, impassive face and sighed despairingly to herself.

She'd had many opportunities to take lovers; men were often making it clear that they were interested, but she'd stayed stubbornly faithful for these all these years, all these gray years, hoping that eventually the man she thought she married would return to her. She'd made herself believe Olin had done the same. But, late at night, as he snored in their pointlessly shared bed, she wondered…If he was sleeping with other women, then the slender thread from which her hope for her life dangled would... _snap._ She would plunge into the dark abyss that tried to swallow her whole every day.

ooOoo

Archeus sat in the front passenger seat of the Two Men and A Truck moving van. It had stopped at a distance up the street from The Excelsior.

The man driving, in her employ, shut off the engine. She scanned the street. No one had moved toward them. Everyone was where her expectations told her they would be. Huntaker had managed to get her all the information about the President's security detail and so far the information had been correct. The helicopter in the sky would make its final pass in a few minutes, and then be gone. The President did not like blatant security of that sort defacing his public appearances, concessions to terror.

She pulled the company hat down as far as she could. Her hair was up, inside it, and she wore the overalls required of company workers, along with a company jacket. She jumped from the cab, her heavy, soft-soled boots hitting the asphalt soundlessly. Her ribs screamed in pain but she shut it out. She'd have to survive it. Drugging herself now was not permitted. She needed every nerve on alert despite the agony of it.

She kept moving, not allowing herself another glance around, affecting the tired, bored gait of someone who moved heavy furniture for a living. The other man opened the back of the truck and jumped inside, sliding a large, rolled-up rug to her. She took one end and drew it to her. He jumped out and grabbed the other end as she pulled. Inside the rug were her rifle, her stand, and her other weapons. She turned, her ribs screaming again, and hoisted the rug laboriously onto her shoulders. Together, they started toward the lobby of a tall apartment building, just beyond the point at which a Secret Service man and two others were putting a large sawhorse into place, marking the edge of the on-ground security perimeter. Forcing herself not to look at them, and swallowing her desire to moan in pain, she got to the door, and reached out a hand to open it. There would be more security people in the lobby, and then two on the rooftop. She needed to get past the ones downstairs and then to kill the two on the rooftop.

Then she would assassinate the President. 1, 2, 3...

ooOoo

Sarah sipped her coffee and continued her visual sweep of the area. Chuck was doing the same. He spotted the moving van and bumped her shoulder. She saw it. They watched two people emerge from the cab and move to the back of the truck. It all looked normal. She turned her gaze back up the street, as did Chuck.

Then she had a nagging feeling. _Something..._ But as she turned to look back at the moving van, three large men entered the coffee shop. She realized that she knew one of them: he'd been with the Secret Service when she had, and they'd been casual friends, going out occasionally for drinks on Friday afternoons with other members of their detail. She turned her face to her drink, putting it up to her lips to obscure her face. Chuck saw her maneuver and looked at her.

"I know him," she whispered urgently. "He can't see me." Chuck got up immediately and stood between her and the group of men, who were looking around at the customers. The man Sarah knew looked a second time toward her. Chuck walked to him, talking, pulling a tourist map out of the Army backpack he'd bought and had slung over his shoulder.

"Hey, buddy, can you help me for a minute…" The men tensed and turned their attention to him. The man she knew turned to Chuck too.

Sarah looked back up the street to the moving van. The two people from the van were carrying a large rug, oriental, toward the door of the building. When the smaller of the two, _a woman_ , reached out for the handle of the door, Sarah knew: _Archeus_. Something about the way she reached for the door, a wince in the motion, recalled Archeus' swipe at the light switch when she escaped in LA.

Chuck had kept moving when he had the attention of the men, and had as a result caused them to turn their backs on her. She looked up at Chuck and their eyes met. He knew. Knew she knew, that she had spotted Archeus. His eyes showed that realization, then a following panic, then resignation. Then everything he felt for her. He'd have to keep the attention of the men. She'd have to go. He nodded one time, so subtle only she would have seen it, and smiled at her. So much in that smile, the most complicated she had ever seen…

She got up and left the coffee shop, moving quickly but not so as to draw attention, up the street, toward the building Archeus entered. Sarah pulled her knit cap down, as if against the chill of the DC air and she gave chase, although she looked like nothing more than a tall woman with a destination in mind to anyone who might have given her a thought.

She got to the building and went into the lobby. Archeus was nowhere to be seen. Sarah spotted the security personnel, but none of them seemed especially interested in her. Not yet, anyway. She knew that she could not hesitate, could not do anything that suggested she did not belong there. She made her way to the elevator, passing inches from a woman who was part of the security team, although she was, as the others were, in plain clothes.

Sarah reached into her pocket and pulled out the receipt from the surplus store, looking at it as if it had an apartment number on it. She stepped onto the elevator, and made herself wait, looking at the receipt, until the doors closed.

When they closed, she released her breath slowly. She thought about the look on Chuck's face, his love for her and hers for him.

 _That look_.

 _Her life in his eyes_.

And then, as the elevator began to climb, she _remembered_ Chuck. Everything about him, about the CIA and about Burbank, Larkin and Shaw, and Lou and Jill and Hannah, and Morgan and Ellie and Devon, and Casey and Carina and Graham and Beckman.

Sarah recalled the old adage, the one about how, just before you died, your entire life flashed before your mind's eye. Hers did.

Her father, her mother, Molly. Cons and missions. Darkness, danger, and death, so often death. Budapest, death, and life. Paris and the Eiffel Tower, and the train. That sweet train trip. Thailand and a cobra. Snake. Quinn.

But the connective tissue, somehow even of the parts before she knew him, was Chuck, holding her, holding it all together.

 _Bringing her back to life_.

 _Helping her find...herself._

It all had a meaning, a meaning she had not understood until Burbank, until Chuck, when she had found a way to live with it all, with the past, and to live forward, into her future with Chuck. As the elevator climbed, her mind reeled, her heart rose and fell, and rose again. So much, so fast. Images. Bleakness and hope and frustration and then... _love and life_.

 _A real life_.

 _A new heart_.

 _Chuck_.

 _Live, and learn, and love...with Chuck._

 _They were bringing a life into the world together._

Always, everywhere, warm and kind and full of love for her, always, everywhere: Chuck. Without knowing it, she had lived her life toward him, found him, fought to have him. She was not going to lose him, her life, _hers_ , with him. With their child. Her family.

 _No. She was not_.

The phantasmagoria of whirling, tumbling images, some shadowed, some shimmering, torrented on; she slumped against the wall of the elevator, panting, dizzy, tranced...but suddenly...herself. Fully herself. She was still reeling when the elevator reached the top floor. She had no time to adjust to it all, to reckon with it.

Archeus was up there, on the roof. She had to get there too.

 _I have to stop her_.

 _I have to get back home. I have to get back to Chuck._

She steadied herself against the elevator wall, pressing her hands against it, its coolness against the palms of her hands helping her struggle to focus her mind. She stumbled into the hallway when the elevator doors opened, her vision of the hallway still partly overlaid by moving images from her past.

ooOoo

Chuck saw Sarah leave the coffee shop. He wanted to stop her, run to catch her, but he couldn't extricate himself from the conversation he had started, not for a few minutes. When he finally did, he forced himself to amble ( _Damn, the torture of it, when he wanted to run_ ) to the door. He saw the direction Sarah had gone, but he did not see her on the street.

As Chuck looked up the street, he noticed that the moving van was in motion. The man who had been driving it was back in it, and was turning it around. Chuck peered past it, up the street, hoping that perhaps it had obscured Sarah from view, but she was not to be seen. She must have gone into a building, but which one?

But then Chuck remembered. There had been two people in the moving van, not one. Where had the other one gone, the small one? The smaller one. Smaller. Archeus.

Chuck swung the backpack he'd been carrying in his hand over his shoulder and started up the street, just as he heard the distant sound of sirens. He looked at his watch. The sirens were a sign of the impending arrival of the President's motorcade.

Chuck walked past the street barricade and headed toward the building, praying he was right.

 _Amble, Chuck, amble. Slow and easy._

 _Sarah!_

 _This all got turned around. My amnesiac and pregnant wife is closing in on an assassin and I'm too far behind. It was supposed to be me, with the Intersect, who faced Archeus. Amble, Chuck, slow and easy. You. Can't. Run. You. Can't._

 _Sarah!_

He made it into the lobby. That walk had been Lawrence crossing the Nefud Desert. But in the lobby, no Sarah. No Archeus. Security. Everywhere. He headed for the elevator, but a woman in plain clothes, stopped him and asked to look into his backpack. There was nothing in it to raise alarms, and to after a few minutes during which Chuck stood still but fought to keep from shaking in frustration and anxiety, she let him go on. He got on the elevator and headed up.

 _Sarah!_

ooOoo

The elevator had taken Sarah to the top floor, but she would have to take stairs to get to the roof. Her head was still spinning, although the deluge of memories had slowed. She was still dizzy. Not quite fully present in the present.

She found the door to the stairwell and tried to push it open. It was unlocked. It opened an inch or so, but then would not move more. Sarah pushed hard. When the door opened enough for her to squeeze in, she saw a body, a man, on the landing. He had a bullet hole between his eyes.

Sarah bent down to check his pulse. He was warm but dead. His holster was empty.

She grabbed a knife from the ones sheathed to her calf, under her jeans. As she stood up, she swayed, almost fell, her vision blurred. She did not know if it was an after-effect of remembering, if it was the dead body and the blood she could smell, or if it was her morning sickness. She was nauseated. She felt like she was on a small boat in a choppy sea.

She bent over double and closed her eyes. After a moment, her nausea decreased, although it did not wholly subside. She gripped her knife and started up the stairs. Facing Archeus would have been dicey anytime. But doing it while unbalanced by newly returned memories and morning sick because of...well, _because_...that was not the _best_ plan. But it was the only plan she had. She knew Chuck would come, she knew he would come, but she had no idea how long it would take. She had to get out on the roof.

Up the stairs. She got to the door to the roof. It was solid grey, heavy. No window. No way of knowing what she would face when she went out. She had to hope Archeus was preoccupied with her objective, the President, and confident that no one knew what was happening. She took a breath and tried to clear her overfull mind.

Sarah pushed on the door. She sighed in silent thanks when the door made no sound as it opened. As she slipped out onto the roof, her natural sense of direction took a beat longer than normal to kick in as she blinked in the bright sunlight.

And then she oriented, turned, and saw Archeus. A body was splayed out on the roof not far from Archeus, bleeding, blood pooling around it. The body was lodged under a piece of roofing, invisible from the air. Archeus had put on the man's hat and coat, leaving the movers hat and coat next to the body, hidden; she looked like a member of the security detail.

Sarah's stomach clenched and her throat tightened. She tasted bile. The light made her head hurt.

Archeus was in a crouch, her rifle to her shoulder, the rifle supported by a stand. An open black leather doctor's bag was beside her. She was engrossed in her rifle scope, peering through it, making minute adjustments with delicate movements of her fingers.

Sarah thought about throwing the knife. But it seemed too risky, too far and too unpredictable. So, slow step by slow step, marathon inch by marathon inch, she worked her way toward the assassin. Out of nowhere, she remembered sitting on the couch in Echo Park with Chuck, watching an old _Kung Fu_ episode, a bald Caine walking a path of rice paper without tearing it. She tried to move that way, weightlessly, soundlessly, almost as if not in contact with the rooftop.

She had closed most of the distance when her nausea lava-ed up again, and she stumbled, just a bit, but enough to make a slight noise.

Archeus twisted around. She saw Sarah. Archeus's face became a snarl of rage.

"You? Here? _How_?"

Sarah shrugged one shoulder.

Archeus' knife was in her hand as if magic, immediate, and the rifle, left in place, tilted up, its silenced barrel now pointing to the heavens.

"I will kill you this time. I will kill you and then I will kill the President of the United States. It will be the greatest day of my life…" Archeus's words squeezed from her mouth, dark, oily and hateful. A smile then began to curl her lips upward.

Sarah anticipated the strike but, even so, only barely managed to leap back as Archeus' knife scythed by her abdomen, missing only by millimeters. The strike was so savage that it carried Archeus a step or two past Sarah. Without thought, Sarah's hand went to her abdomen, panic overtaking her.

 _The baby!_

Sarah's adrenaline began to suppress the nausea. But she could still feel it in the background, wavy and thick and warm. She had to ignore it.

Archeus adjusted herself, her face a mask of agony. Sarah knew the miss had likely hurt her ribs far more than slicing into Sarah would have. The two women stood silent for a second, appraising each other, one injured, one ill.

"Ribs still hurting? My husband sends his greetings…" Sarah smiled with as much glee as she could muster, but her stomach convulsed and it soured her smile.

Still, Archeus jerked at the words. But then Archeus began to smile again herself. "You look a little _green_ , Sarah. Admittedly, it could just be that awful red hair, but I wonder…"

 _Shit._ Archeus had seen Sarah's hand go to her abdomen.

"Could it perhaps be that you have _known_ your husband, maybe a little too...well? Did he leave something inside you, a little memento of his coming...and going? Maybe I can carve it out and show it to you before you die, although it won't look like much at this point…Gutting you will be a special pleasure."

Sarah kept herself from reacting. Archeus' knife was weaving, snake-like, in her hand and Sarah kept her focus on it.

"I thought Nerd Herder's wore protection...pocket protection…" Archeus quirked up an eyebrow, waiting for a response.

Sarah remembered the Bullet Train, making love to Chuck. They had not been careful and she had been at peace with that. She was ready to let nature take its course, to let herself and Chuck move on, carried away by their real life past the spy life.

The memory went by. Sarah responded to Archeus, smirking. "Wow. Maybe you are this great assassin, Archeus, _maybe_...But puns, now, _really_? Maybe there's a little nerd in you too?"

Archeus smile vanished. She struck again, lightning fast, even with her injury. Sarah parried the blow, the two knives rasping against each other. Sarah could see that Archeus was now fixated on Sarah's abdomen, and the flurry of blows and strikes that followed all had Sarah's midsection as their target.

Over and over, stabs and swipes, aimed at Sarah's life and the new life she carried.

Twice, Archeus blade made contact, swept, shallowly, across Sarah. Her shirt and the top of her jeans was bloodied. She had struck Archeus a couple of times as well; there was an ugly gash on Archeus' forearm, and the knuckles on her knife hand were cut open and spilling bleed on the ground, on Sarah, on Archeus herself.

Backward and forward. The advantage Archeus', then Sarah's, then Archeus' again. Two deeply game, utterly deadly women, each now silently absorbed in her task: kill or be killed. The rasp of the knives. Panting breaths. Grimaces of pain. Backward and forward. Foreward and backward.

Archeus closed on Sarah once more, her eyes black with fury. This was it; Archeus' all-or-nothing attack. The air was now full of loud sirens. The President's motorcade had arrived. The window of opportunity would close for Archeus very soon. If Sarah could keep her fighting for another minute or two, the President would be safely inside The Excelsior.

Archeus' attack was so committed, so violent, that it drove Sarah back several steps. Her foot caught on an uneven spot on the roof and Sarah fell hard, her knife flying from her hand and bouncing a few feet away. Archeus leaped into the air, following Sarah's fall, her knife poised to stab the life from Sarah.

Sarah caught Archeus's arm as it plunged the knife toward her, just as Archeus landed on top of her. Grunting, Sarah twisted beneath Archeus, dumping her to the side, rolling on top of her. The knife jabbed at Sarah but she stopped it. Slowly, almost glacially, Sarah leaned into Archeus, ever so slowly, ever so glacially, she torqued Archeus' arm around, until the tip of her knife was pointing toward Archeus herself.

And then Sarah leaned with the full force of her greater weight and strength, steering the knife into Archeus' chest, while squeezing Archeus' injured ribs with her thighs. Archeus gasped, weakened because of the pain. Sarah felt the sickening friction of the blade as it passed between Archeus' ribs and then plunged to her heart.

Sarah's stomach heaved. She knew she would might be sick when this was all over. But she had to make sure it was over. She drove the point home.

Her face was almost pressed against Archeus'. Sarah's blue eyes looked into Archeus' black eyes. Black and blue. The life was leaving Archeus's eyes, making them somehow blacker.

"You were _Sarah Walker!_ You could have been so much more." Archeus' words came out as a hiss, the last air from a leaking balloon.

Sarah responded softly, seriously. "I am _Sarah Bartowski_. I am so much more."

Archeus' pupils blackened permanently.

ooOoo

Sarah heard the stairwell door burst open and Chuck yelling her name: "Sarah!"

"I'm here, Chuck! I'm here!"

* * *

 **A/N2** Well. Well. There. Tune in next time for Chapter 22, "Ending, Not Stopping". Review? Pretty please?


	23. Chapter 22: Ending, Not Stopping

**A/N1** The denouement _,_ but like everything else here, _under compression._

The final scenes of Act V. There will be a brief coda soon.

My time is almost up; I thank you for yours.

Don't own _Chuck_.

* * *

ACT V

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Ending, Not Stopping

* * *

Huntaker choked on his expensive scotch and fell into a brief coughing fit.

 _No. What the hell had happened?_

 _What the hell_ hadn't _happened?_

The President was on the tv screen, standing at the podium inside The Excelsior, waving to friends and nodding his head. _Alive_.

 _The President is goddamned_ alive.

Huntaker wiped his mouth and then his forehead. He got up, keeping his eyes on the tv, and went to his desk. He needed to get out of town. Dropping into his plush desk chair, he pulled open a drawer in which he kept a file of encoded papers and other items he would need on the run.

His hands trembled. His breathing was ragged. He was seeing spots. He was certainly in one. That small voice in his head was now shouting: _Chuck Bartowski!_

ooOoo

Chuck was trying to check Sarah's wounds. Spiralling. He kept asking if she was ok. Sarah kept trying to tell him she was, she really was ok. Not just the wounds, everything.

"Chuck, stop, stop for a moment, sweetheart." The last word, the endearment, seemed to reach him. He stopped fussing and looked directly into her eyes.

"Sweetheart?"

"Chuck, it's _me_. I mean, it's always been me, but I remembered, Chuck, all of it, on the way up the elevator. My life came back to me. You came back to me. I know myself; I know you; I know _us_." She returned his look but then suddenly felt shy, self-conscious. She bit her lip and glanced away.

"And," Chuck started, his voice warm but wary, "you are still ok, ok with...everything?" His eyes ticked to her abdomen for a second, then back.

She laughed and pulled him to her, kissing him. The kiss now trailed her life, her life in full, _memorial_ ; she knew how she had gotten here. Her gratitude was too intense for words. Her love for her husband was more than she knew how to contain. She lengthened and deepened the kiss.

They were like that, embraced, when the stairwell door burst open and a team of Secret Service agents stormed the roof.

The following moments were tense and dangerous. Chuck and Sarah surrendered and were taken into custody. Cuffed. Chuck was able to finally get the lead agent to listen to him, and he shared a series of codewords with her. Her eyes bulged and she immediately got on the phone, walking away from the captives and the rest of the team. Guns were still trained on Chuck and Sarah.

Chuck glanced surreptitiously at Sarah and she rose one brow in question. He pointed at his head. _Intersect._

The agent returned, her eyes now bulging even more. "The President wants to talk to you." She held the phone out to Chuck, but he could not take it smoothly because of his handcuffs. He dropped it. Sarah caught it before it hit the rooftop, despite her own cuffs. Everyone stared at her. She shrugged and handed the phone carefully to Chuck.

Sarah half-expected Chuck to spiral again. _The President_. But Chuck was completely calm, masterful.

"Sir, I believe you know who I am, and I believe you know what it means that I knew that code." Chuck was silent, listening. "Yes, sir, that's right. That's me. I do have...it. Yes, General Beckman arranged it, before DARPA was bombed. No, sir, Sarah _did not_ do that. It was Archeus...Yes, _that_ Archeus," Chuck shook his head at Sarah in bemused disbelief, "and it is her body-well, hers is one of the bodies up here, on the roof…above where you arrived. Yes, sir, Sarah _did_ do that. She had no choice, it was either her... _and you..._ or Archeus…"

Upon hearing Chuck say that, Sarah ignoring the guns trained on her, leaned in and kissed him on the cheek and whispered a barely audible "I love you".

"You ignored the calls from Beckman? Sir, all due respect, but that was _stupid_ …" Chuck stiffened. "Um, right, right, yes, sir... _Mister_ President." Chuck grinned weakly. "You need to call Beckman, sir. This was all the doing of Olin Huntaker. Yes, that's right. Well, sir, I have never actually met the man, but I trust your judgment, as well as your impressive knowledge of equine anatomy...Sir, I'd love to chat more, really I would, I mean really, but... _Huntaker_."

Chuck listened for a while, then handed the phone back to the agent, grinning broadly. "Um, he wants to talk to you." She glared at Chuck, but then gave in and grinned back at him. Watching, Sarah took his hand in hers.

"He's going to talk to Beckman. If she convinces him, they'll let us go. A team is being sent to Huntaker's, to take him into custody." Chuck turned from her and looked at an agent. "I assume there is someone here who can attend to my wife's wounds?" When no one moved immediately, Chuck growled, "Don't make me tell the President." Suddenly there were a number of volunteers.

ooOoo

Huntaker was so panicked that he did not hear the doorbell. But his Janice did. She went to the door and looked out the clear glass on one side of the door. A man in a delivery uniform stood there, his delivery truck visible, parked by the curb.

She opened the door. The man looked at her for a moment, up and down, then caught himself and fixed his gaze on her eyes. "I have a certified letter for Janice Huntaker."

Janice blinked in surprise. No one ever sent her anything. Deliveries were always for Olin.

The man held out an electronic device for her to sign, and then he handed her a large envelope after using the device to scan it. She took it from him and went back inside, closing the door with her hip. It was from a lawyer's office, a very prestigious New York firm. The address was handwritten, in an obvious woman's hand. Puzzled, Janice opened the envelope. There was a second envelope inside, and a piece of paper.

She took out the piece of paper. It was a brief note, addressed to her, in the same handwriting as the address.

 _Janice,_

 _We don't know each other, but I hate to tell you we have something in common. Your husband. Enclosed find photographs and other documents that should make clear to you the many lives your husband has been leading and keeping from you._

Janice's hands began to tremble. She opened the interior envelope. Photographs of Olin, of Olin and...women. Of all ages, some quite... _young_. She looked through a few before she made herself stop and look at the printed pages. Bank account information. Vast sums. And then more photographs, of Olin in meetings in shadowy places. For the most part, Janice did not recognize the others in the photographs, except for Samuel Gordon, the Vice President.

She cycled back to the original pictures, her eyes filling with tears, mercifully occluding the graphic details. She put all the papers and envelopes on the hallway table. She walked upstairs in a deep trance, and went to her nightstand. She turned around and went back downstairs.

She walked into Olin's office. He was digging frantically in his desk, an open briefcase now on the top of the desk. Janice called his name. He ignored her. Of course.

She walked further into the office. She spoke his name once, in a tone she did not know was hers to use. Olin heard that. He finally looked at her.

 _Looked at her. Finally._

He saw the revolver in her hand, the purpose in her eyes. He lunged for his desk drawer. She heard a shot but felt nothing. She calmly pulled the trigger six times, stepping closer to him each time, making sure he could see her, until he could see no more. The gun he had grabbed from the desk and fired at her was hanging impotently from his hand.

She put her gun down on the desk and picked up the phone, just in time to hear the front door being kicked in and for her home to be suddenly full of men and women in FBI jackets. Janice put her hands up. Everything turned gray. One of the FBI agents picked up her gun with a gloved hand. Another took Olin's gun. She heard a third say, "Looks like self-defense."

Janice stood among them and wept.

ooOoo

Chuck and Sarah were in the back of an FBI van, still cuffed, when word came that Huntaker was dead, evidently by his wife's hand. Chuck glanced at Sarah and she at him. She smiled at him. Not at the news, but at what it meant. It meant it was over, done. It meant they were finally _out_ , out of the spy life. Yes, they were still cuffed and there was still the Intersect to contend with. But they were done. They were starting a family, starting a new life. Simple. Real.

By the time they reached FBI headquarters, Chuck and Sarah were no longer considered prisoners, and their cuffs had been removed. Clean clothes, a decent fit, were found for Sarah. They spent several hours in discussion with FBI bigwigs, and bigwigs from other agencies. They were both bone-weary and beyond tired of telling the story as they told it for the umpteenth time. But finally, it ended. They were told to expect to hear from the President. And then, just like that, they were released.

They stood on the street in the chill dusk and looked at each other, each at a loss.

After another moment, Chuck asked, "Dinner?" Sarah nodded vigorously. The sandwich from a machine and a stale chocolate donut served her inside FBI headquarters was not enough for a growing mother. She pulled her leather jacket shut and zipped it.

Chuck offered, "How about pizza?"

Another session of vigorous nodding. "Yes," she replied, excitedly, "with piles and piles of olives."

Chuck looked at her sideways. She poked him in the shoulder with her finger, forestalling the inevitable pregnancy gibe. "Keep it to yourself, mister. I'm no woman to be trifled with…"

"No woman is to be trifled with," Chuck noted, a thoughtful, crooked smile playing across his lips, "but, you, Sarah Bartowski, are the most dangerous and the most beautiful and the most mysterious woman in the world..." His eyes and his voice made it clear that he was not just joking.

She took his hand as they began to walk along the sidewalk. "Tell you what, Chuck. I want to talk while we eat that pizza. I have some things I remembered, things I'd like to share, to share with my husband." She deliberately let that last word hang in midair, suspended, as she smiled openly at him: "I'd like to be a little less mysterious." She felt him squeeze her hand gently, and the feeling telegraphed all the way to her heart.

"Oh! Chuck," she added, the thought striking her, "when we head home, can we go to San Diego first?"

He looked at her, a little confused. "Sure…? Why?"

She dug into her pocket and retrieved a carefully folded piece of paper she had moved from the pocket of her bloody clothes to the pocket of the clean ones. "There's something in a pawn shop there that I can't live without."

ooOoo

Beckman had an...energetic phone conversation with the President. She was reinstated and given a substantial raise. She eventually accepted, after getting concessions to other demands. She then informed the President that she would work six more months and she was retiring. Roan, listening in to her side of the conversation, gazed intently at her when he heard that. He shot her a questioning look and then gestured from her to himself and back again, several times, mouthing "Us?" She nodded and beamed. He beamed right back.

The Team headed out of the VA hospital and back to their respective homes. Ellie and Devon were first out the door, desperate to see Clara. Morgan and Alex left with Casey. Morgan and Alex were holding hands and Casey was rolling his eyes at them, but talking on the phone to Gertrude.

Carina stayed long enough to ask Beckman if she could give the story to Al, the inside scoop. Beckman agreed, noting, of course, that security concerns would mean that not all of the story could be told. Carina understood.

She dialed Al's number and trilled his name when he answered. She stiffened at her own tone; it had not been premeditated. But then she relaxed happily and went with it, starting into an explanation. She told him she'd be on the first flight back to DC, and would see him soon. She wanted to have that talk, the talk about _them_.

ooOoo

At Sarah's request, Chuck and Sarah traveled by train from DC to San Diego, although they saw virtually nothing of the interior of the train (beyond their room) and little of the exterior scenery. There were things to do in their cabin, and so much to talk about.

It was a second honeymoon, and Chuck placed Sarah's reclaimed wedding ring on her finger when it ended.

* * *

THE END

* * *

 **A/N2** Thanks, everybody. Coda coming: "Notes from the Overground".

I've been aided and steadied by my pre-readers, _David Carner_ , _halfachance_ and _WvonB_. My sincere thanks to them for wading uncomplainingly through first drafts and partial chapters, and enduring lots of in-the-margins chatter.

Amazing, isn't it, how flawed _Chuck_ was and yet how compelling it managed to be? Maybe there's a lesson there, I don't know, something about the common imperfection but yet the potential power of human endeavor. But now I sound like a philosopher, and that's my day job.

Even if you are reading this after it was completed, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Leave a review, please.


	24. Chapter 23: Notes from the Overground

**A/N** A final thanks for reading, reviewing, PMing

Think of this as a small parting gift.

Don't own _Chuck_

* * *

CODA

Notes from the Overground

* * *

 _A short while after the long train trip to San Diego and the return to Burbank..._

Sarah was on the bed, her hospital gown up over her stomach, a light blue sheet covering the lower half of her, ready for her first ultrasound. The doctor was making final preparations for the procedure, explaining everything to Sarah.

The door opened, closed. Sarah and the doctor stared, their mouths hanging open. Chuck was standing there, wearing nothing but a hospital gown and a pair of argyle socks. Chuck started to speak, saw their faces, shut his mouth.

Carina slipped into the room behind him, unnoticed. Chuck turned bright red, panicked, staring back at Sarah and the doctor. He unconsciously lifted the hem of his gown a bit. "Carina said I needed to put this on…"

Sarah watched Carina look pointedly at the open back of Chuck's gown. And smirk. Then Carina spoke: "'Thus cracks a noble heart. Good-night, sweet prince'." She grinned mischievously at Sarah, winking.

Chuck whirled, but Carina has slipped back out the door. "Damn her," Chuck grumbled, shaking his head. Then he realized his continued exposure, whirled back around and backed out the door. When he was gone, the doctor grinned at Sarah, raising her eyebrows and shaking her head.

 _Carina_.

Sarah knew the payback wasn't over, but it had officially started. She reclined and sighed, laughing softly, running her hand through her once-more blonde, but still-short hair.

ooOoo

 _Ellie had performed the removal of Chuck's pristine Intersect. When she finished, Chuck took her computer and carefully deleted all of the files, destroying them._

 _He sat and gazed at the blank computer screen for a long time. He swallowed. Without looking up, he said, simply, hoarsely, "It's finished."_

 _Ellie nodded at him and turned to Sarah. "So, Sarah, let me tell you what I'm thinking. To remove your Intersect, it has to be re-started. I propose we take the equipment to a research lab at UCLA and put you in a sensory deprivation tank while we do it, so as to minimize the possibility that you will flash. Just think of it as a sci-fi-ish outpatient procedure. You beat it, you know, Sarah, you beat the Intersect. On your own. Your mind and heart were stronger than it. But still, I'd feel better if it were gone..."_

 _Sarah glanced at Chuck and he motioned for her to answer. They talked it through already. "Ok, Ellie, when?"_

" _Tomorrow? I know you have the ultrasound scheduled for today."_

" _Yes, tomorrow. Dinner tonight still on?"_

 _Ellie nodded excitedly. "Yeah, everyone will be there. Morgan and Alex, Casey and Gertrude. Carina is putting off her return to Mexico for one more day so that she can come." Ellie stopped, her eyes widening. "She's bringing someone. Al, I think."_

 _Sarah nodded once. She'd met Al. She and Chuck really liked him. After Carina's op ended, they were going to go away together, to a cabin Al owned in the mountains outside of Bozeman, Montana. It would make or break them, a few weeks in isolation. But Sarah was not pessimistic. "Yeah, she's driving us to the hospital for the ultrasound."_

 _Ellie walked to Sarah and took Sarah's hands in hers. "It will be ok. There's no reason to worry about the baby."_

" _I know," Sarah offered, "but I really want to hear the heartbeat. It'll be...I don't know...completely real."_

 _Ellie hugged her._

ooOoo

Ellie and Devon had requested and gotten a postponement on the positions in Chicago. Ellie had let folks in LA know that she and Devon were re-considering. It now looked like UCLA would make them both an offer, and they planned to take it. Ellie had decided they were not going anywhere, not with a new Bartowski, niece, or nephew, about to enter the world. Devon was only too happy to stay.

ooOoo

Beckman and Roan were back in DC. Beckman had gotten the President to agree to wipe all the records of the Intersect and of Team B. He'd thanked Chuck and Sarah by video conference for all they had done, not just for him, but for so many. He'd also forced Samuel Gordon to step down quietly, citing health problems as the reason. The Rebecca Franco-DARPA story got quietly walked back, dubbed a case of mistaken identity, forgotten. Archeus claimed the headlines, but the true story of her end was not told.

The wiped records meant that no one would remember the Intersect or Team B. There were no longer any official CIA or NSA records of the Intersect, or of Sarah or Chuck.

Their lives were theirs.

Casey had talked Gertrude into staying in LA and not returning to Russia. They were actually looking for apartments since Alex was going to move in with Morgan. Casey hated that arrangement; Casey loved that arrangement. He spent all his time grunting, then smiling.

No charges had been brought against Janice Huntaker. The information that Madeline had sent to her was crucial in bringing down Olin Huntaker's accomplices. Huntaker had left Janice very well off. She was planning to move back to North Carolina. At least, that's what Beckman had heard.

The business that Sarah and Chuck had envisioned was coming to be. Casey was going to work with them. They'd been able to get the offices Sarah had wanted, windows, and above ground, and Beckman had seen to it that the money Decker had tied up was released. They did not need to work, but they would, as they wanted.

For themselves.

ooOoo

The doctor moved the ultrasound wand around on Sarah's stomach. After a moment of white noise, a high-pitched, fast heartbeat could be heard. Sarah reached for Chuck just as he reached for her. Together, they listened.

 _His heart was her heart._

 _Her heart was his heart._

 _The baby's heart was their heart._

Sarah could feel her heart and could feel Chuck's pulse as she grasped his wrist _._

 _Three hearts beating in concert._

* * *

End of Coda

* * *

"But even now it is manifest and clear that there are neither times future nor times past. Thus it is not properly said that there are three times, past, present, and future. Perhaps it might be said rightly that there are three times: a time present of things past; a time present of things present; and a time present of things future. For these three do coexist somehow in the soul, for otherwise, I could not see them. The time present of things past is memory; the time present of things present is direct experience; the time present of things future is expectation." Augustine, _Confessions_ , Book Eleven


End file.
